Building Better Habits

Although it can happen at anytime, there are certain points in the year where it just feels right to reorganize and refresh your routine and lifestyle. There’s the beginning of the year (remember when Marie Kondo was everywhere in January?) and of course, spring cleaning, when the weather starts to get warmer and it feels like we’re waking up from a stuffy winter-long hibernation.

We’re also in the midst of a key time for lifestyle reorganization: those going back to school are probably getting adjusted to the new routine and having to put the puzzle pieces of classes, work, and leisure together for their schedule over the next couple of months. Right now is both an exciting and stressful time: it can feel relieving to get organized, but also worrying about whether or not you’ll stick to it.

Truthfully, it can be hard to stick with these habits. What may start as a carefully detailed planner with a color-per-class can end up at the bottom of your backpack, forgotten and covered in coffee stains. Optimistic plans to go to the gym everyday can end up with your sneakers hidden underneath your bed collecting dust. Even smaller goals like biting your nails less are out the window once that first exam starts to loom over your head.

These are all okay! It’s almost common knowledge at this point that nearly all New Year’s Resolutions fail before February and it takes dedication to have a habit become a part of your everyday life (you may have heard the unofficial rule about it taking 21 days to build a habit). Changing and sticking with a new routine and habits takes a lot of hard work.

The Fabulous app (iTunes/Google) is there to help you strengthen these habits and keep up the goals you may have set for yourself recently or at any time during the year. It’s an app that goes beyond reminders for you to drink 8 glasses of water or ask you if you wrote in your planner that day. It’s research-based short activities that you can do everyday to build all kinds of healthy habits, with mindfulness exercises and a 10-minute physical exercise you can do anywhere without any equipment. You can build your way up to developing a morning routine and there’s also a section where you can dedicate 4 hours to just focus on any assignments you need to complete.

Fabulous is free for your first month if you only have a couple of habits that you want to establish, but to maintain them or continue building more habits, there are monthly and yearly subscriptions too.

What habits have you set for yourself recently, whether it be school-related or not? Do you think having a coaching app can help?