My goals for March were the same as January and February. And they will be the same for the rest of the year. That’s because I’ve committed to tripling down on my existing foundational health habits this year, and to not start anything new.
I want to see a huge green wave on my six habits – alcohol, sleep, protein, caffeine, water and steps. I want absolutely no doubt that I can keep these green EVERY month. I’m close to that, but there are some weak spots across some of those that I need to fix.
My other goal is to get my whole foods habit to 80% consistency. I hope this can be done in 2024, but it’s early days. I know this will be my toughest challenge to date, so, we’ll see.
One of the things I’ve realised about building foundational health habits, is you have to be patient. In fact, it’s one of the five rules I outline here – 5 rules to build rock solid habits (not what you would expect!).
Things will take as long as they will take. Setting a fixed goal for when you want something in place isn’t going to force the matter – as much as you would like it to. It’s much better to simply be clear about your focus, and then settle into the process. Put in the work every day, week, and month and keep building. If you stay focused and work hard, you’ll get to where you want, as fast as you can.
With all of that said, let’s see how I did in March.
(Click here to see the full history, going back to Jan 2022)
What a month! I hit 80% consistency for the six health habits I am trying to keep green. That’s the second time I’ve ever done this. You can’t ask for more than that.
I should also note that I had a few challenges to overcome in March. A work offsite, Easter (yeah chocolate eggs are my kryptonite) as well as it being the start of half term for schools.
Luckily, I made such a strong start to the month, that some slips towards the end of the month didn’t make much of a difference overall.
Let’s take things one by one.
Alcohol was 100%. Always will be.
Sleep was a super impressive 90% consistency. I had only three misses for the entire month. All of these were because of an unusual late night or early start that was hard to work around. I’m noticing that I’m really settling into a consistent sleep and wake time now, which is making all of the difference.
Protein was at 94%. This is super easy for me now. If I ever miss this, it’s usually because I am traveling or out for the day, and it’s hard to hit the number. Because my average is usually upwards of 180 grams anyway, I don’t stress about missing it now and again.
In fact, now that 150 grams is easy, I’m going to raise the target to 175 grams. This is my gold standard, because it equates to a gram of protein, per lb of bodyweight. Yes, it will make things a little bit tighter. But I don’t see any issue with being able to hit 175 grams and keep consistency above 80%. Let’s see how things pan out in April.
Caffeine was 84%. Not much to say here. I find it super easy to keep above 80%. Every miss was a strategic loosening of the rule, to either help with a bit of energy pre workout, or to fit in with some traveling.
Water was also at 84%. Again, not a gigantic amount to say. I always feel comfortable being able to hit over 80%. The main point to note here, is that I’m still working on being able to do this more smoothly. I talk about that here – Habit Hack: An easy way to start or improve a habit.
Steps hitting 87% was definitely my proudest achievement in March. This is the first time I’ve been in the green with this habit for six months. Comfortably above 80% too. I feel I’ve turned a bit of a corner with steps recently. I’ve made some changes to my routine, and I feel more confident in being able to hit over 80% every month from now on. This now falls into the same category as sleep – I need to work on achieving it more smoothly. It’s often a rush towards the end of the day to make it over the line.
And lastly, whole foods, the new habit I am working on. I managed a small increase from 45% to 48%. But hey, it’s so small, we’ll call it flat.
If I’m honest, I haven’t really done the work of trying to figure out some strategies of making the leap to 60 and 70% consistency yet. I’m kinda happy for it to tread baseline, whilst I focus on smoothing out my water and steps habits. Plus, March and April have a lot of irregular stuff in them (the bulk of the two week half term, some overnight travel etc.), which will make it really hard to improve upon this habit at the moment anyway.
That leads me nicely to my focus for April.
Same again. I want to see those six habits (alcohol, sleep, protein, caffeine, water and steps) all above 80% and in the green again. That would be a fantastic step in the right direction given my goals for 2024. It would also be a decent achievement given the irregularity of April.
I’ll let whole foods settle where it wants to in April (which by the way might even be worse than February and March), and start to turn my attention to getting that up to 60 and 70% thereafter.
Alright. I’ll see you guys in about a month’s time when I look back on April to see how I did.
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