The Time is Now. This is the Real New Year.

The passing of the summer months brings a decline in temperature, obviously, but also signals a return to a more structured existence. Some families are returning to school schedules, and teachers are gearing up for work again.

The fun of the summer also leads us to loosen our controls on lifestyle behaviours. Our sleep is more erratic, our diet gets more lax, perhaps a few more beverages, and less intentional exercise. It is understandable, because the summer is so short, so we want to hit it hard. But now, back to work…

(This post follows Part 1 – “the WHY” of Making Positive Changes. Check out that post here.)

What Needs to Change?

When your health, your fitness, your weight, your bank account or any other aspect of your life isn’t what you want it to be, it is time for change.

We deal a lot with symptoms. Factors like poor posture, inactivity or a sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition or exercise habits, and high stress loads are examples of major stresses that can slowly and sneakily lead to significant stress on the spine and nervous system, and awful symptoms that cause pain and hold us back from enjoying life. Change has to happen for sustainable relief, repair, growth and vitality.

While it isn’t always what people want to hear, it does make sense that the stresses of an individual’s life can slowly cause health challenges. And in the end, making changes to these factors is the best way to feel better without needing drugs or surgery. This understanding is also the most reliable way to help make change. Unfortunately, the understanding alone isn’t enough. You actually have to make change happen.

Change can be Hard! (But the right approach makes it a LOT easier.)

We know that life can feel like a grind, with very little wiggle room to add more stuff. Not to mention the times you’ve tried to make changes and they failed to stick. No one wants to feel those feelings again and again.

So, how do we do it?

How do we give ourselves better odds of success? How can we stack the deck in our favour?

What do we know about being more successful at changing habits and lifestyle choices?

In this blog, we will run down a list of helpful thoughts and actions that can help you change and stick to new habits to help you reach your goals.

Mindset Matters: “One Day”, or “Day One”?

This is the time of year of change. School schedules return, work requirements ramp up from the summer volume, vacations are done for the next few months, kids hockey schedules unfold, production demands rise, many are called back to the office, and generally we get the feeling that it is time to get our sh*t together!

We know that in order to perform in all these ways, and feel good in the process, we have to make some serious changes.

When we feel the need to make change, the biggest question determining your success is how you order two little words: One Day, or Day One.

“One Day” say that you know you have to make the changes. You know it will be worth it. But, it shows that you currently don’t have the motivation or discipline to do it NOW. We can say “One day, I will…” over and over for years. We can watch dreams of a more productive, more enjoyable, more fee life melt away in those years, while we say that we will do something about it… one day.

“Day One” says it is time to replace words with action. It is time to move closer to your goals. It says that you are tired of dreaming, planning, researching, and talking about change. It is time to actually do it. The journey ahead starts today, on DAY ONE.

Day One reminds you that there are many days ahead, and you don’t have to be perfect now. You just have to show up and put in the work.

Today is Day One of gaining a better understanding of how to make positive changes stick.

How Habits Work

Habits are defined by a three step pattern, according to Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit. When you look at it that way, it seems simple.

There is a cue. A cue is a trigger. It is the first step.

The cue can be a person, an event or time of day, a smell, a feeling, a location, an emotion…

There is a behaviour as a response to the cue. This is usually the problematic behaviour we want to change. In response to the cue (which we may not be able to control), we must form a new behaviour.
There is a reward for performing that behaviour.

All habits have some sort of reward, even the habits that are bad for you. We have to define new rewards for the new behaviours that we want to foster.

To change a habit, we have to set up a new cue > response > reward loop.

Understand your Habit Cues

The triggers that drive our behaviours come in only five forms:

Time of day – Just before bedtime, he wants a snack.
Place or environment – She smokes cigarettes in the car.
Emotion – When I feel anxious, I eat carbs. When I’m stressed, I eat.
People – Whenever I am with them, I drink too much.
Preceding behavior – After dinner, he watches hours of tv.

When you want to change a behaviour, you have to discover the cues that are currently triggering those behaviours. Once we learn the cue, we have to instill a different behavior in response to that cue.

Time of day – Just before bedtime, he has a drink of water and reads a book in bed, away from the kitchen.
Place or environment – She chews gum in the car.
Emotion – When I feel anxious, I make a list of the things on my mind. When I’m stressed, I do some breathing exercises.
People – Whenever I am with them, I drink soda water with a lime, and if they don’t accept that, I realize I may have to find other friends.
Preceding behaviour – After dinner, he goes for a walk with his wife.

Sometimes we have to eliminate cue in order to make the change. This may be people who don’t support your changes, activities like drinking that make it harder to stay in control of your behaviours, places that trigger the actions we want to avoid, or snacks in your house that are hard for you to avoid.

The Will to Change

In the short term, we rely have willpower to rely on to initiate the behaviour. That willpower stems from the motivation we have to make change (why we want to change). In the beginning, willpower and motivation are all we have. Thankfully, it can be enough at the beginning to start making changes.

“Willpower is a muscle that can get stronger every time you use it.” ~ Charles Duhigg

Motivation and willpower tend to fade with time, especially if we aren’t consistent. As you continue down the path, however, you will develop discipline, which will fill in the gaps when willpower and motivation begin to falter.

Keep Going, It Gets Easier

Engaging in a habit behaviour, and especially the repetition of those behaviours, builds neural pathways that get stronger and stronger each time.

Picture what it’s like for kids tobogganing in the winter after a deep snowfall. Every trip down the hill reinforces the path taken, deepens the grooves, and makes it easier to stay on track next time.

If You Falter, Get Back On It

Even if you stop a habit, because these patterns (the tracks in the snow) have been laid down, it will be easier to come back to it because of the work you already done. Any effort is good effort. Every day you do it, it will get a little bit easier.

When those missteps happen, simply evaluate what went wrong, and make changes to avoid it happening again. Were you hungry before that happened? Were you in a tempting environment? Did you not get enough sleep? Were you hanging out with people who weren’t supportive?

Create the Cues for Positive Change

If you want to make a new habit last, you can install these cues into the plan. The more of the five cue types you use, the more successful you will likely be.

Choose a cue and a reward that you will earn, and link them to a behaviour that you want to reinforce. (“After I work out after work three days per week for 8 weeks, I can buy a new pair of jeans.”)

Engage other people to do it with you or keep you accountable. (Work out with your friend.) Put yourself in the environment that will help you make the right choices. (Pick your clothes and pack your gym back the night before, and out them by the door or in your car, and go to the gym on your way home so you don’t get tempted to stay at home.)

The Science of Small Wins

Start small, and just show up. The most successful stories are those built on small victories and built steam over time. If it is a gym habit you want to start, just show up and walk on the treadmill or ride the bike for 10-15 minutes, then leave. Do this for the first few weeks, just to go through the motions and teach yourself that you CAN fit it into your life, and you have actually done it and seen that it is possible.

Humans are Habit Machines

Our survival as a species has been made possible by our ability to handle these exact situations, and we have a distinct skill at developing habits. We have to instill some solid thought and logic to the habits we want to form, in order to shape the life we want. We have to pick our habits, and work to get them established in our life, then we can reap the rewards.

Make it Automatic

Developing discipline is far easier when you set the stage for success. Discipline thrives on predictability.

Create routines to foster your success:

get up at the same time each day
develop a bedtime routine that makes the morning easier: set out your clothes and gear needed for the next day, pre-pack your food, put your morning supplements on the counter…
prep multiple meals for the week to save time and money.

A lifestyle consistent with healing growth and repair.

The most important habit changes we can make are those that improve our health, longevity and vitality. One of the hardest lessons to learn when faced with a health challenge is that “You can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick.” You cannot grow if your habits keep shrinking you.
And you can’t repair what’s broken if your daily life is built around more damage.

If you want to feel better, live better.

Your body and mind are designed to heal – but only if you let them.

Are you getting adjusted to restore function to your nervous system, which controls everything else in your body?
Are you getting enough sleep to allow your body to heal and your nervous system to cleanse and recover?
Do you fuel yourself with real, nourishing food, or are you surviving on processed substitutes?
Have you created quiet moments to think, reflect, breathe, recover, and reset? Rest is not laziness. It’s medicine. If your nervous system and body stay in adrenaline-fueled survival mode, you physically can’t heal, grow and repair.

Growth doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design.

Are your habits aligned with your goals?
Are you spending time with people who lift you higher?
Are you challenging your comfort zone in small, sustainable ways?

Growth is a lifestyle, not a weekend seminar. Small, consistent choices compound into transformation over time.

You are what you repeatedly do

Through repeated performance of any task or behaviour, we gain familiarity, skill, and a sense of mastery, which reassures us that it was a good choice. This applies to all areas of life, from fitness to finances, and from nutrition to relationships. Get started and keep at it. It will get easier, and feel more like you.

Reps Remove Doubt

When we start to do something different, it feels foreign. It feels like we are faking it, or doing something we shouldn’t be doing. We feel silly, and it fills us with doubt for the path ahead.

Thankfully, this feeling is diminished every time you repeat that choice or action. When you choose water over diet Coke, turn off the tv an hour earlier so you can get more sleep, decline to drink alcohol just because it is the weekend, or walk into the gym for the first few times, you are entering new territory. But as you do it again, and again, and again, it gets easier, and feels more familiar. It feels more like you. It feels more like you putting yourself first. It feels like you respecting you, and doing what it takes to support you.

Motivation vs discipline

Motivation is an emotion, and is fleeting. It pushes us to act. It’s powerful, but unpredictable and short-lived. Motivation is affected by mood, weather, the people around us, energy levels, and other distractions.

Motivation can often get you started on a change of course, but it rarely carries you through to the results you want.

Motivation is a spark that can light a fire, but it doesn’t keep the it burning.

Discipline, however, is the ability to show up and follow through, regardless of how you feel. It helps get you to your exercise when you’re tired, and eat healthy when no one is watching. It keeps you grinding when motivation starts to wane.

Discipline is a muscle, and the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

Waiting for motivation can cost you everything. Choosing discipline can change your life.

Start small, build routines, and train yourself to take action, no matter the circumstances.

A change in mindset has to come before and accompany action. You have to think that change is possible. You have to think that you’re worth it. You have to think that you are able to make the first step.

When we feel we feel uncertain, overwhelmed, or stuck, the natural instinct is to overthink. We analyze, hesitate, and wait for clarity. We call it perfectionism, but perfectionism is just procrastination disguised as quality control.

Doubt and Insecurity Resides in Inaction

Self-doubt grows when we sit still. The longer we wait, the louder the questions become:

“Am I good enough?”
“What if I fail?”
“What will people think?”

We gain confidence by action, and by showing ourselves that we can do what we say we want to do. We build integrity with ourselves.

The first time says “I tried. I put in the effort.”
The tenth time says “I’m getting the hang of this.”
The hundredth time says “This is who I am, and this is what I do.”

Making changes is easier as you gain confidence, and that is built through repetition, and consistent action. The gym newbie gets stronger by lifting. The new writer gets better by writing. The entrepreneur earns trust by delivering value.

Master the Mundane Middle

Everyone loves a new beginning. It’s fresh. It’s exciting. You’re energized by vision, fueled by adrenaline, and surrounded by possibility. The start feels good.

And everyone loves the finish. The celebration. The results. The transformation. The applause. You made it. It was worth it.

But the middle? That’s where most people quit. Not because it’s painful, but because it’s boring. The middle is where progress slows, often because the novelty wears off.
– You’ve logged the first few workouts, but there’s no six-pack.
– You’ve written 10,000 words, but the book is nowhere near done.
– You’ve launched the idea, but no one seems to care – yet.

As the initial fanfare subsides, and routine sets in, it gets harder. No one is clapping for you. The resistance to taking consistent action gets stronger as a result. The alarm clock is less convincing. The right food choices don’t taste as good. The goals even seem to lose significance, and the “work” it takes to get there seems to feel bigger. You start to wonder if it is all a waste of time.

For some behaviours and habits, the rewards are slow and steady, and often not apparent for a long time. Saving or investing money, going to the gym, learning a new language, and rehabbing the relationship with your mom are all good examples. Any kind of “deep work” is like this. The payoff likely won’t be immediate.

We have to be able to handle the mundane repetition of the middle ground, after the exciting beginning, and before the successful end. After all, it is in the mundane middle that the successes are actually made possible.

This stage is where you build resilience. This is where your identity shift starts, because “you are what you repeatedly do.”

This is where you prove to yourself that your goals aren’t just exciting – they’re important and you’re worth the effort.

Learn, grow, continually develop yourself.

When we are kids, our values are given to us by our mothers, fathers, teachers and preachers. Then we hit teen years and we start to establish a new definition of who we are, based on our interaction with peers. By adulthood, we’ve refined that further and come into our own.

Often, however, that’s when we tend to stop growing, learning and developing ourselves.

We get stuck in a rut. We often don’t change what we eat, how we exercise, where we get our information, and who we surround ourselves with. We create a fixed identity that can have a stifling and unhealthy impact on us, cognitively, emotionally and physically.

“I’m not a gym person.”

“I don’t eat that.”

“I don’t like those people.”

“This is just who I am.”

We have to actively remember to stay curious, and try to assess our lives, circumstances, and behaviours from other viewpoints to see where our prior convictions may be holding us back. It is important for us to realize that some beliefs we held and behaviours we continued may no longer be suiting us, and we need to consider change.

Read new books, blogs and sources of information and inspiration.

Listen to books and podcasts if you’re “not a reader”.

Ask different and better questions of yourself and others. Seek out people who challenge you.
Think for yourself, instead of strictly holding onto the beliefs given to you by others.

Act in different ways if you are not 100% satisfied with the trajectory your life is taking.

Every new insight is a tool. Every mistake is a lesson. Every day is a classroom—if you choose to see it that way.

It isn’t always comfortable, but all growth happens outside of your comfort zone.

It’s not just about you.

The best version of you positively affects everyone around you. As you make positive changes in your life, it has an effect on your spouses, parents, kids, partners, colleagues and friends…

Remember, you don’t find yourself – you build yourself. Bit by bit. Habit by habit.
Discipline, character, confidence – these aren’t traits you’re born with.
They’re developed, if you’re willing to put in the reps. You are what you repeatedly do.

The Daily Habits That Heal Or Harm

Your body is constantly working to repair, restore, and regulate. But it can only do that well if you create an internal environment that supports healing, and doesn’t fight against it.

If you’re feeling inflamed, tired, anxious, or stuck in a cycle of low energy and poor health, it’s time to take a closer look at the basics:

1. Get checked.

Whether you’ve gotten adjusted by a chiropractor intermittently for crisis management, or continuously as part of a wellness routine, you have helped your body and nervous system to unravel some of those accumulated stresses of life. Get scanned and assess how your body and nervous system is holding up to the stresses of your life. Partner with your chiropractor to get yourself in a state that can accomplish your goals.

2. Processed & Inflammatory Foods

Highly processed foods fuel chronic inflammation. Over time, sugar, refined seed oils, artificial additives, and chemicals disrupt hormones, gut health, and immune function.

3. Alcohol

Alcohol disrupts liver function, dehydrates the body, interferes with sleep, and drives inflammation. Even moderate use can slow recovery and impair mental clarity. Keep it occasional and mindful.

4. Sleep

Sleep is when your brain cleans and resets, your muscles repair, and your hormones balance. Poor sleep leads to cravings, irritability, and burnout. Aim for 7–9 hours of quality, consistent sleep. Prioritize winding down, darkening your room, and limiting screen time before bed.

5. Exercise

Movement is medicine. It lowers inflammation, improves mood, boosts circulation, and strengthens your body inside and out. Focus on a mix of strength training, cardio, mobility, and restorative movement (like walking or stretching).

6. Water Intake

Your cells, joints, digestion, and detox pathways all rely on adequate hydration. Even mild dehydration leads to fatigue, brain fog, and sluggish metabolism. The baseline goal is about half your body weight in ounces per day (more if active or sweating). Start your morning with a full glass.

7. Foster Good Relationships

It has been said that you are the sum total of the five people you spend the most time with. If you hang out with people who are stuck, unhealthy, overweight, negative, pessimistic or toxic, the odds are good that you will become just like them. Find good people and build a circle of support to help you become who you want to be.

A foundational element in positive health changes is to ease the accumulated stress on the nervous system, and improve mobility, through regular chiropractic care. If you haven’t recently, you should get checked.

Don’t guess; Assess.

If we’ve had chronic stresses from work, sports or posture, we may not actually feel the symptoms related to that dysfunction. If we ignore all of our little tweaks and kinks over the years, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the issues got better. We just stopped listening, and the message faded. We adapted to the dysfunction, and have been compensating ever since.

We may not actually feel the level of dysfunction that we’ve accumulated through the years of our hectic, demanding lives. In order to see the impact on the body, we have to measure how the body is working.

We assess several ways. Your health history gives us clues to build an understanding from the body’s perspective. We listen to what your body is saying. Your nervous system exam and scans test and measure if your spine, nervous system and body are working like they should. We measure function, not feel. In order to feel better, it has to function better.

Palpation lets our hands feel how your body is working. 20 years of experience checking thousands of spines and joints of all ages has given us the ability to specifically assess where you’ve lost proper function. We know the intricate motion patterns of all of the joints in the body, and use our trained hands to assess the individual components of a healthy spine and nervous system.

X-ray analysis can be used to assess how your spine was formed, if it has changed over time, and lets us know what stands in the way of getting you to your goals.

We put all of those together to formulate a plan to get your body and nervous system working and feeling like it should, and help you reach your biggest goals.

The nervous system is what controls and coordinates all of the functions of the body. Life’s stresses can accumulate and cause the bones of the spine to get stuck or dysfunctional. This can irritate and interrupt the effective communication between specific parts of the body and the brain. This can lead to negative overall health, and a variety of symptoms.

Even when you “Don’t feel too bad”, it’s a good idea to get checked.

If you aren’t completely satisfied with your state of health and happiness, it is time for change.

Change is not easy, but with the right approach, we can make those hurdles smaller and make real progress. You are capable of achieving the life you want.

You are capable of achieving the life you desire. We may be able to help get you there.

We only have one chance at this life, so start those positive changes now!

We’re always here to help you facilitate those changes, and are ready for us when you need us.

Making Positive Changes – Part 2 “The HOW”