How to make *habits* easy to stick.

Move the mat.

5…4…3…2…1…

Happy New Year! 🥂

It’s 2025. Let that sink in first. I think it’s going to be a good year. I have so many good feelings around it, and looking back, 2024 had been quite an adventure for all of us.

Recently, I read an article; I couldn’t help but wish I wrote it. But the good news is, my friend

Kiara Hainsworth

wrote it as a guest post for The Epiphany.

And I liked it so much that today I bring to you her article instead of mine, which was scheduled for today.

Your Friend,

~ Abd Sid

And Here’s Gloria In her own Words…

Morning light pierced my eyelids as I groaned in protest. I rolled over, burying my face in my pillow in a futile attempt to prolong my sleep. I still felt tired from the long day before and began (quite easily) to convince myself to stay in bed a while longer.

“I have my workout to do this morning; I really gotta get up,” I thought. All the reasons why I could skip it today began to roll around in my head. After a few minutes, I guiltily glanced at my watch. Perfect. Now I didn’t even have time to work out.

A few weeks prior, I had decided it would be good for me to implement some brief physical exercise into my morning routine—on paper, a fairly simple 10-minute workout. In reality? The matter that was turning me into one of the nation’s best excuse-makers.

This positive (potential) habit was not sticking.

Then, as if someone had pressed a magical button labeled “Form Good Habits," I was able to keep up that routine (almost) perfectly for the next several weeks until I’d reached my goal.

That button? It was one change I made:

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Every night, before crashing, I gathered my workout clothes and exercise mat from my closet and set them by my bed. Suddenly, this routine thing started feeling easier. And guess what? When a habit is easier to make, we are more likely to make a habit of it. Human nature or something.

You see, the temptation to “skip the workout this once” was still there, but preparing myself for the hard moment when I woke up made it so much easier.

Now, making and breaking habits is never going to be easy. But what if this next year you made it easier on yourself?

That dehydration problem you’ve been struggling with? Maybe carrying a water bottle around would help.

The doomscrolling situation? Don’t open your phone every second you’re bored.

Your smoking issue? Well, what are ya waiting for? Don’t leave that Marlboro pack in your back pocket.

I can’t promise it’ll be like magic. I can’t promise you’ll accomplish your entire New Year’s Resolutions list this next year. But one choice to make it easier on yourself can lead to one habit, which can end up turning you into a person you never dreamed of being able to be.

You can do this! But it starts with little choices. Move the mat.

Congratulations. You’re one step closer to living a life you won’t regret.