Читать книгу Tom’s Daily Goals: Never Feel Hungry or Tired Again - Tom Daley - Страница 7

Introduction

Would you like to lead a healthier life, in which you never feel hungry or tired? One in which you can manage stress and are more resilient, productive and focused? Sometimes our goals seem so big it is hard to know where to start! Part of living a good lifestyle is transforming your knowledge or inspiration into daily habits.

This famous quote by Aristotle is a good reminder that we are the sum of our habits: ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.’ In order to kick-start a healthier lifestyle – one in which you eat, sleep and exercise well and practise good physical and mental self-care – it is not about simply adopting a fad diet for a few weeks or promising yourself a lie-in every weekend for a month, it is about much more than this. Sometimes we start out with great intentions to get fit/lose weight/get more sleep, but all too often our attention and energy wane, we get distracted or we don’t see results quickly, so we give up.

To be the best you can be, you have to treat your body and brain in the right way. As an Olympic athlete, I’ve not always had an easy journey but habit-forming has been key to my success. I have to take my habits and routine seriously, even though there are times when I find it very hard! From consistently getting between eight and nine hours’ quality sleep a night and focusing on getting all the correct nutrients in my diet, through to prioritising meditation sessions and creating new goals and challenges, my happiness, well-being and sporting achievements are all about the small details and patterns of my life, as well as the bigger ones.

More than 40 per cent of our actions every day are not decisions but habits. The fact that habits are so integral to our daily lives means that we spend much of our day performing them. Habits are our brains’ way of increasing efficiency. When we first engage in a new behaviour, our brains work hard to process new information. As we understand how a behaviour or action works, it becomes automatic and our mental energy decreases. This frees up our brainpower to take on some more important challenges.

You can take back control of your life by simply adopting new habits. In Tom’s Daily Goals, I have detailed the seven daily habits that I value and nurture myself, and that can easily be incorporated into your day. Time is one of the best ways to trigger new habits, which is why each of my habits is associated with a certain time of day. This will help you to stick to your new routine on a daily basis. These new habits begin with doing ten minutes of yoga and stretching first thing in the morning to energise and awaken the body, through to setting your own bedtime ritual that starts an hour before your intended bedtime, helping you to relax and unwind in order to get a good night’s sleep. As you start to see the rewards, be it a sense of accomplishment after exercise or a feeling of calm at the end of the day, your brain will start to anticipate these and your habits will become more engrained into your life, until they become second nature. Creating a foundation of good habits will benefit your life from today onwards. This isn’t a temporary fix – it’s a new and far more rewarding way of living that will yield great results. Good luck!

Tom Daley