How to reset your habits mid-year

If your New Year’s ‘Motivation Monkey’ has left you hanging, try these 5 tips to get back on track with your ideal habits and routine.

It's April as I write this blog, and it seems most conversations personally and professionally, now begin with “Wow, I can’t believe it’s April already.” Usually accompanied by a tone of trepidation. There’s nothing like ticking into a new quarter, to spark self-reflection on what you achieved…and didn’t.

All the euphoria of the new year may be starting to fade as reality sets in. And those new habits you planned may have fallen by the wayside. 

If you follow this blog, you know I love talking habits and routines, as I believe they are the guardrails for whatever you want to achieve personally or professionally. 

When my husband and I planned our recent move, I eagerly envisioned all the possibilities the new environment would motivate. While it certainly has inspired many things, what I didn’t foresee was just how easily the move would alter my usual habit-obsessed ways. While some habits were unshakable, others seemed to take little convincing to be put on hold. It was a stark reminder of how easily a few changes to the norm can disrupt ambitious plans. 

So, if like me, you find yourself needing to get back on track with your habits and routines, here are my go-to tips

1. Adopt a 12-week year mindset 

Instead of worrying about the months that have already passed this year, reset your perceptions of time.

Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington’s The 12 Week Year challenges you to think differently - so you act differently by default. It dares you to redefine time as you know it.

12 weeks is not a quarter of the calendar year. 12 weeks is the year. Forget annualised thinking and think in 12-week years. The idea of rethinking time isn’t as outrageous as it sounds. Historically, humans have been changing or adopting different calendars for thousands of years. 

Don’t feel hopeless about where you’re at this time of the year, and give up for the rest of the calendar year. Instead, reset your perceptions and start fresh. The 12 Week Year is designed to help capture the motivation you experience at the start of the year and spread it throughout the year. 

In astrology, the new year starts with Aries on 20 March, and the Roman calendar at times also began in April. So, instead of dwelling on the disappointments, bring back that new year's motivation.

2. Reset your habits in layers

If, like me, you have more than one habit you need to get back on track with, reset your routine in layers. For example, depending on the effort your habit requires, each month, fortnight or week, introduce your ideal habit back into your routine. Once you’ve given yourself some time to adjust to the new addition, add another layer with your next habit As they say, the only way to eat an elephant is one bit at a time.

3. Restart small 

As BJ Fogg shares in his book, Tiny Habits, start small. It’s the sustainable approach to creating lasting habits: 

“While small might not be sexy, it is successful and sustainable. When it comes to most life changes that people want to make, big bold moves actually don’t work as well as small stealthy ones.”

So, if you haven’t read as much as you’d like to, start with one page. Walk up the street or around the block. You can have your big reading and 10,000-step goals in mind, but starting small gets you going. It also leaves your motivation wanting more. 

4. Anchor your habits  

It’s likely not all doom and gloom for all your desired habits. While some things may not have gone so well, others may have gone great! Give yourself credit for what’s worked well, but also use these activities strategically. If you’ve wired a habit into your routine well, use it to ‘habit stack’. Add another habit to that activity. E.g. once you finish X, it immediately prompts you to do Y. 

For example, perhaps your 5am starts and getting to the gym first thing is going well. But, your daily reading isn’t. Group these activities together. When you come home and rehydrate or grab a cup of tea, take the time to read at least one page of a book instead of scrolling social media or tuning into the morning news. Group your ideal habits together and give yourself more flexibility for the parts of the day you have less control over. 

5. Just start

Don’t let the Motivation Monkey get you down. According to BJ Fogg:

“The Motivation Monkey loves to help us make big moves, then slips away from us when the going gets tough. And doing big things can be painful. We often push ourselves beyond our physical, emotional, or mental capabilities. And while we might be able to keep up this effort for a while, humans don’t do things that are painful for very long.”

Instead of dwelling on your disappointments in breaking your habits or not starting them at all, just start. Don’t overthink it. Do one thing in the next day, or even the next five minutes that gets you going again. Breaking a habit is usually never a real issue. It’s not restarting something you’ve decided is a priority for you that is. 

So, reset, reimagine and recreate your ideal life through your daily habits.