Ep 6. How to Build Good Habits

I’m Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number six, How to Build Good Habits.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own well-being and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s gonna be fun. Let’s go.

Hey, everyone. How’s it going? Well, I am doing awesome and amazing. I leave in two days for my first in-person business mastermind meeting. So, I’m getting my stuff together and working ahead.

I’ll be gone for five days, and I haven’t been gone anywhere for five days in a long, long, long time. So, my brain thinks it’s a big deal and is even trying to talk me out of going, which I find very amusing. I’m organized and almost packed and can’t wait. I’ve wanted to be in a mastermind for a couple of years, and this one came up out of the blue, seemingly. And I went all-in on it.

It’s led by one of my dream coaches, who has created a multimillion-dollar life coaching business in eight short years. She’s brilliant, kind of a big deal in my world. I’m just so excited to be in the same room as her.

And then there’s 24 of us that got accepted into the mastermind, and I know I’m gonna learn so much. I feel super lucky to be in this group. I also know I’m in over my head, which is the perfect position to be in when you’re wanting to grow. I’ll keep you posted on all of this in the next few episodes. I know you’re gonna love hearing about it.

So, today, we’re gonna talk about one of my favorite topics, which is good habits. I love thinking about good habits. I love talking about good habits. I love practicing and building good habits. I love teaching women how to build them and how to keep them going.

What are your habits and which ones do you consider good? What do you do every day or most days that help you love your life?

A habit is a routine or a practice performed regularly—an automatic response to a certain situation. Habits are things that you do all the time without really thinking about it. Most of them are subconscious and automatic, so slow down and pay attention. Do an evaluation. Be willing to drop a habit that doesn’t give you the result you want.

Maybe you’re doing something that is convenient that isn’t good for you, like eating sugar and processed food every day, or drinking alcohol every night, or staying up too late, or hitting the snooze button every morning, or always in a rush, or saying “yes” when you want to say “no,” or spending too much money, or complaining and gossiping, or saying you’ll start tomorrow.

These are habits that us women over 40 would like to drop. These are habits that no longer are serving you, and if you want to reinvent yourself and create a life you love living, you’ve got to let them go.

So, how do you do that? How do you get really good at dropping unuseful habits and start practicing something better? Today, I’ll give you three of my own ideas that I practice that you can borrow to build good habits for yourself.

Idea number one is knowing that it’s never too late and the habit isn’t too small. Your brain will tell you that you’re too old and you’ve tried a million times already and it must be too late for you to change, which is a boldfaced lie. I promise.

Your brain will tell you that doing one small, good thing every day won’t make a difference. And so, you might as well not even try it, which is also pure nonsense. Absolutely not true.

I know from experience that you’re never too old to start something new and drop something old. I know from experience that even the teeniest shift in a habit will make a profound difference in your life. So, at 60 years old, I’m always changing my habits and kind of tweaking them. I’m constantly playing around and experimenting, and they keep paying off.

James Clear tell us about this in this illustration in his book Atomic Habits. He says in his book Atomic Habits, “The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees.

“Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington, D.C. instead of New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff. The nose of the airplane moves just a few feet. But when magnified across the entire United States, you end up hundreds of miles apart.

“Similarly, a slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very different destination. Making a choice that is one percent better seems insignificant in the moment, but over a span of moments that make up a lifetime, these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformation.”

And I love that. I love thinking about the picture he drew of the airplane. And my brain just was so fascinated with that idea the first time I read it. So, I think about that often when I’m doing little things every day. I know from experience the compound habit and everything that keeps adding up.

So, little, tiny choices that your brain tries to talk you out of, stick with ’em. When they’re good ones, stick with ’em. Do ’em every single day, and I promise you, you’ll end up where you want to end up. Just a little tweak in your everyday habits.

So, that was idea number one. It’s never too late and the habit is never too small or tiny.

Idea number two is focus on adding one thing at a time. Don’t get overwhelmed with all the things you want to change. Change one thing.

If you want to have healthier eating and drinking habits, start with drinking more water. Commit to drinking a bottle of water an hour throughout your day or something like that. I drink an average of a gallon of water every day, and I have been for years and years.

So, write it down on a sticky note. Put it on your steering wheel. Put your sticky note on your bathroom mirror saying, “Drink your water.” Just as a reminder, set the timer on your phone to remind you: “Drink your water.” Always have a big glass of water before you eat.

I have two of those super big Starbucks clear plastic insulated cups with lids and straws. That’s kind of my pack. I think that they’re maybe 24 ounces. I keep two of ’em full and with me all day long. I fill ’em up with ice and with water and keep refilling them. I take them with me wherever I go.

I’m never not drinking water. It’s been such a useful habit for me. And so, I don’t even think about it anymore. Hydration, of course, at our age is so beneficial for us. And I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s really just a natural part of my days. It solves for several issues that I don’t have to deal with. It keeps me from overeating. It keeps me hydrated. It keeps me energetic. That one good thing leads to the next good thing.

Add some exercise to your schedule. Focus on that and do it every day no matter what. A 15-minute walk every morning or a yoga class three days a week or a two-mile run four days a week. Schedule it and don’t miss it. Write it down the night before. Make it easy on yourself. Lay out your running shoes. Lay out your yoga mat and your yoga clothes.

Keep at it until it’s natural and an easy, everyday part of your life so you don’t have to talk yourself into it. The more good habits you add one at a time, the more good habits add up. One good habit naturally promotes another good one.

Adding more water and exercising every day makes going to bed earlier and getting up earlier a little easier. Drinking more water and exercising every day makes eating healthy foods easier and drinking less alcohol easier. Drinking more water and exercising every day helps you feel better and gives you more energy.

And so, you get more accomplished. It’s a natural progression to a happier, healthier, more vibrant life. One good habit at a time. They simply keep adding up. I love that.

Idea number three is drop one bad habit on purpose. Stop doing one thing that isn’t good for you. The habits you’ve gotten away with in your first half of life, you absolutely can’t get away with in your second. If you want to feel happy, healthy, and vibrant after 40, you need to pay attention.

My brother is a perfect example. I have an extraordinary brother. I’ll probably be telling you a lot about him and my sister—well, and all my family, actually.

But he’s exactly 11 months older than I am, so we’re considered Irish twins, and he was my first best friend. He lives in Germany with his husband, Helmut, and they are both very healthy and happy and brilliant.

They came to visit a couple months ago and we talked about habits, because they just are so fascinating. They look so good. They live very energetic, high-energy lives. And so, of course, I just want to pick their brains and find out how they’re doing it.

And, of course, they have very good habits. And that’s what gives them the kind of life they live. They each have incredible jobs that require a lot of travel and a lot of brain energy. I’m very fascinated by how they live and how intentional they are.

But what I want to tell you today is the profound difference my brother made in his life when he gave up one thing. He stopped eating butter. That was his one thing to drop. Butter was his delicious, everyday habit that became a problem for him. By dropping butter, the foods that butter topped no longer were appealing.

Breads and potatoes and pancakes and popcorn and all the things we put butter on are not the kind of food that bodies respond well to, especially bodies after the age of 40. These foods cause inflammation and inflammation causes us so many health problems, which affect everything about us.

So, when he gave up butter, he also gave up breads and potatoes. And that reduces inflammation, which made his body feel better and turned into a commitment to exercise every morning. Then, he started buying and chopping lots of fresh vegetables each day and intermittent fasting, with one meal a day of lean protein and lots of chopped, fresh vegetables.

He is a completely different person in the best possible way, because he dropped one bad habit and slowly added new ones that are so much better for him and give him a totally different life experience. I admire his discipline and mindset and am completely inspired by it.

The day they left, I went to the store and loaded up on fresh vegetables, and have been chopping and eating them every day ever since. I’m not kidding you. Eighty percent of my diet now is organic eggs and chopped, fresh vegetables and raw nuts and a little fresh fruit. I’ve never felt better.

So, I can tell you from experience, drop one thing that isn’t working for you and watch what happens.

So, to recap these brilliant building-good-habit ideas that I’ve given you today… Idea number one: decide it’s never too late and the habit is not too small. Idea number two: focus on adding one good habit at a time. And idea number three: drop one bad habit on purpose.

Also, you guys, don’t be in a rush. Pay attention to your routine. Your habits matter. We want your good habits to last a lifetime. It’s completely possible to change anything at any time that isn’t working for you if you want to.

In her book Badass Habits, Jen Sincero says something really true and helpful. “Forming good habits isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being more of who you are.” And that’s what we’re ultimately headed for, and that’s what we really want: becoming more of who we are. Right? Good habits will always get us there. I promise.

So, that’s it for today. I adore you all for being here. And I’ll talk to you next week.

To celebrate the launch of the show, I’m going to be giving away a few of my very favorite things to five lucky listeners who follow, rate, and review the podcast. And it doesn’t really have to be a five-star review, though, of course, I would be ever grateful. And I do hope you love the show. But I do want your honest feedback so I can create something awesome that provides a lot of value for you.

So, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com/PodcastLaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. I’ll be announcing the winners on the podcast in an upcoming episode.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.