How to use your wearable to make good habits stick
You’ve decided which activity tracker to buy, it fits, it feels good and you’ve already started to tailor your workout gear to match it – that’s totally allowed BTW. But as anyone who’s flung themselves into a new challenge will know, you can’t just buy a bit of kit and expect the rest to fall into place.
As I wrote in my feature about finding the right activity tracker last week, wearable tech still hasn’t got built-in Disney magic. It can’t put your running gear on for you, drag you out of bed, lull you off to sleep or stop you from eating cake.
So what’s the answer to bridging the gap between your piece of wearable tech and your goals? Well, a whole host of stuff actually. The most important one being cultivating good-for-you habits.
According to the internet it may have been Artistotle who said “we are what we repeatedly do”. Which means losing weight, becoming fitter and moving more to make us feel alive and happy isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s the consistent good stuff that equals real, monumental change.
There’s a lot of debate online about the science behind our habits. It’s common knowledge that it takes around 21 days for something to “stick” and become habitual. However, researchers at UCL think that number is all wrong and it can take some people a week and some people nearly a whole year to get into the swing of good practices.
But one thing that most experts who study our habitual, fascinating, quirky little brains tend to agree upon is that the cycle that makes something a habit can be summarised quite simply.