Habits, Roles and Routines- Oh MY! (Part-1)

For those of you that do not know, for my "career", I am an Occupational Therapist. I specialize in working with children ages 3-5. My most simplistic definition of what I do is I work with children to address their challenges so that they are able to play, explore, and learn. Of course I work on handwriting too :)

When I was completing my Master’s degree, we had a whole semester dedicated to exploring the theories that frame our thinking when working with a client. Per my usual self, I spent the minimum amount of time learning the theories behind what I do because, well, they are theories and I am a “doer”. Now that I have graduated and began my practice, I find that I resort to few of my favorite theories to help guide my treatment with my clients.

Now back to my title: Habits, Roles, and Routines. This is a simplified version of Gary Kielhofner’s Model of Human Occupations Theory (MOHO). Ok, so what does all of this OT jargon have to do with wellness? EVERYTHING! (Sorry for shouting there). Since this may get a little lengthy, I will break it to 3-parts.

Habits. Did you know the research indicating that it takes 21 days to change a habit was actually from a Plastic Surgeon who discovered in the 70’s that it took 21 days for a person to adjust to the loss of a limb? (random bit of information) So how long does it take to build healthy habits? It can take upwards of 2-3 months. Please don’t be discouraged by this. When we are talking about your health and wellness, 2-3 months is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the years we are living.

So how to we create new habits that stick? That is the million-dollar question. I suggest starting small and do not try and change everything at one time. Here is a little exercise that I find useful. Sit down with a piece of paper and list the areas of your life you would like to address into columns. Under each column, list 5-10 things that you could do to improve that area. Now take one just one change under one column and make that your priority for the next month. Try writing a mantra and placing it around your house so that you can focus on that one change.

Here is my example: I am working on drinking more water during the day. I know how important water is to my health, plus it just makes me feel good. To help ensure that I drink throughout the day, I make sure that I always have water with me. In my car I have my cute purple Sigg bottle, at home I just bought a bright blue COPCO cup with a straw. I even have cups of water strategically placed throughout my home. Having this visual reminder helps to cue me in to drink.

The most important thing to remember when creating new habits is that you may take 1-step forward and 2-steps back. Just keep moving and change will happen. Sometimes the path is not straight, but we must keep moving in the direction of our goal and we will get there, learning all along the way!