If it’s true that it takes 21 days to create a new habit, then some of you are feeling pretty good and are due some admiration and congratulations form the rest of us. \u00a0And some of you are feeling a bit discouraged\u2026 especially if you\u2019re struggling to improve some behavior because you want to be a good example for your kids.<\/p>\n

Many of us are \u201cgood quitters.\u201d\u00a0 We become expert at quitting smoking, starting a diet or buying a new calendar.\u00a0 Why, then, are so many of us thinking about whether or not we want to jump start a resolution or wait until next year to try again?<\/p>\n

While writing about mental habits for another project I was reminded why our bad habits are so difficult to break:\u00a0 automation.<\/p>\n

Habits are things that we\u2019ve learned to do and practiced so much that we engage in them without even thinking about them.\u00a0 In order to change, we need to help move them to another \u2018section\u2019 of our brains.\u00a0 That seems to work better when we consciously set ourselves up to make the automatic behavior more difficult to do than the habit we\u2019re trying to build.\u00a0 For example, if I don\u2019t let my buddies Ben and Jerry live in the freezer it becomes far easier to stay in my slippers and jammies\u2026. to stay out of the car\u2026 and to eat an apple…. than it does to eat too much yummy, high-fat ice cream.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s this got to do with our kids?\u00a0 It\u2019s that pesky \u2018power of example\u2019 thing again.\u00a0 Is there a way that you can let them know about re-starting your goal \u2013 and maybe even get some support from them?<\/p>\n

This might be a good idea for a couple for a few reasons. \u00a0Both going public and asking for support increase your chances of success.\u00a0 Second, the opportunity to sit with your kids and talk about how habits are built and changed is a wonderful teachable moment.<\/p>\n

Finally, they\u2019ll get to see that Mom or Dad is able to pick up and move on when things don\u2019t initially go according to plan.<\/p>\n

And that may be the most valuable habit of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How are those New Year’s resolutions coming along? Is it time to involve your kids in making those new habits stronger? If you don’t succeed at first… you may be able to teach something wonderful!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[208,348,415,514],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-four-foundations","tag-habits","tag-new-years-resolutions","tag-power-of-example","tag-succeed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}