Wellness Coaching |Adding a Habit Trigger |
What cue are you using with your clients when developing a healthy habit?
When developing a wellness habit that is not replacing a habit what cue is being added to trigger the new wellness habit?
The cue can be a specific time, a place, a person, an emotion or an activity chosen by your client to fit with their life.
Here are a few examples of cues / triggers that can be added to the day for wellness habits.
Cue: Morning Alarm
To add routines into a client's morning, waking up earlier will be necessary. Their normal ingrained routine is set to the old alarm time and will be more difficult to change. Setting the alarm earlier with the focus on one hour of health related activity will help change the morning routine for clients.
The easiest way to set a new alarm time is to purchase a ring tone on their phone that is specifically used for their new healthy wakeup alarm.
Cue: Music Notice on Phone
People hear ringtones and look to see if their phone is ringing. Your client can do the same thing when they hear certain ringtones on their phones. Sit down with your clients and decide what times of the day they may need a reminders to ensure they are staying on track with their healthy habits and lifestyles.
Ringtones cost around £1 / $1 so the investment by the client is minimal and the daily reminders that are based on music will help set the foundation of the wellness habits. You can attach the music to an alarm and to a phone calendar and to an app notification.
Cue: A place - Doorway
For a healthy lifestyle, the doorway may be an important location for your client. Look at what habits they have before leaving their house and attach a healthy habit to leaving the house. The healthy habit may require them to prepare leaving the house thirty minutes earlier to get 30 minutes of NEAT activity checking that they have everything for their day or that they have cleaned up their door entrance.
If your client goes to a gym for a workout, the doorway cleanup may include preparing their bag for the gym, emptying their bag after returning from the gym and restocking their gym bag for the next day.
A gym bag can replace whatever bag they used to take to work so that it doesn't get forgotten in the car.
Good sized gymbags, that is acceptable for a daily commute, are found on the internet in a variety of sizes and are labeled as carryon holdall bags for traveling. The best and most acceptable types are crossover messenger, duffle bags and backpacks in a dark colour. I currently use a carryon bag which costs around £10 and is made for commuting.
