How to make healthy habits stick, according to a celebrity self-help guru

It's all about staying consistent

What do Taylor Swift, Deepak Chopra and NASA have in common? They’re all fans of best-selling author Robin Sharma. Here, the go-to celeb self-help guru reveals how you too can stay on track when it comes to health habits to smash your goals.

Success is something Robin Sharma has encountered a lot. Not purely his own – the leadership and personal growth mentor has authored bestsellers, including The 5am Club in 2018 and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari in 1997, selling over 25 million books in the process – but also with the billionaires, royalty, rock stars, sporting legends and CEOs who call on his wisdom.

Indeed, Taylor Swift revealed that she has ‘a lot more good days’ after reading his work, while Richard Branson, Deepak Chopra and Jon Bon Jovi are likewise fans. Ditto: NASA, Starbucks and 2.2 million people who follow Sharma on Instagram.

The one thread running through all Sharma’s conversations with those intent on seeing something through? Consistency. “Small, daily improvements, when done repeatedly over time, can lead to stunning results,” he insists. “This is far more important than what you do once in a while.”

Not least because this is how a healthy habit is forged, he says, pointing to research by University College London showing it takes 66 days before we reach a place of ‘automaticity’ – the ability to do something without occupying the mind with its low-level details. “Human beings have the gift of neuroplasticity,” adds Sharma – who launched his audio mentoring programme, The Deep Magic of Daily Consistency, in March. “Our brains are built to change.”

Consistency, believes Sharma, is ultimately the key to greatness. “Imagine you are making your way through an unwalked meadow,” he explains. Each day you repeat a habit, you’re laying down a new piece of neural ‘wiring’. “As we know from neuroscience, brain cells that fire together begin to wire together,” he continues. “That untrodden meadow slowly turns into a path, then a road, then a highway.”

The good news? The more consistent you are, the stronger that muscle gets. Before Sharma reveals how to stay consistent when it comes to any healthy habit – whether that’s committing to Pilates or cultivating happiness – he has three rules formed from 30 years helping wellness-seekers achieve their aims. The first? To not over-stretch yourself. “I encourage people to be minimalists not maximalists,” he shares, of a common consistency saboteur. “Build your life around a few personal ‘Mount Everests’.”

The second is to be disciplined. “All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end,” he continues, noting how often when an action feels ‘too difficult’ we assume there’s something wrong and we give up. “It’s like a space shuttle that uses more fuel in the first 60 seconds for lift off than it does in its entire circumference around the earth.” The same goes for overhauling your diet or beginning meditation. “It’s important to listen to your body, but we also have to be structured,” he adds. And the third? Forgive any inconsistencies – then restart. “We live in an age of distraction and overwhelm,” he warns. “Everyone misses a 5am start sometimes – but we learn to run by falling down.” Talking of which…

The power of working towards a common goal is often forgotten in the self-help space, which is individualistic to its core, but it’s highly effective for keeping putting one foot in front of the other.

How to stay consistent with fitness

Rather than make a loose pledge to exercise a few times a week, carve out the specifics of exactly when. “Because once you have a routine, you’re using less willpower,” explains Sharma, whose ‘victory hour’ – detailed in The 5am Club – championed 20 minutes of movement first thing. It will also trigger the release of the inspiration-boosting, feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine and reduce the ‘fear’ hormone cortisol. “All of which help consistency to follow the rest of the day,” he shares. 

Want to be even more regular when it comes to working out? “Do it in a group,” says Sharma, pointing to the success of the accountability and community brought by Alcoholics Anonymous. The power of working towards a common goal is often forgotten in the self-help space, which is individualistic to its core, but it’s highly effective for keeping putting one foot in front of the other. Indeed, if you want to tick off running a marathon, then a run club is a great starting point.

But it’s important, particularly with food, to have balance. Image: iStock

How to stay consistent… with nutrition

Want to make healthy food choices a habit? Get better at keeping your own word. “Every time we break a promise we lose credibility – not only in the eyes of others, but also with ourselves,” says Sharma. “The more you respect yourself enough to stick to your commitments, the easier consistency will become.” In practical terms, each time you pack yourself a lunch made at home from scratch, rather than something grab-and-go from the shop, the more you will trust yourself to keep it up.

But it’s important, particularly with food, to have balance. “We should be free to enjoy pizza and ice-ceam on occasion,” insists Sharma. “Restriction promotes obsession – if we’re too military, then we’re setting ourselves up for failure.” And risking calling it quits for good. However, if you indulge more than you had planned to, be kind to yourself. “There’s good science that negative self-talk can affect our self-identity – and you’re not then going to have the will to practice consistently,” he points out. “People are super mean to themselves and then they wonder why they don’t get things done.”

Focus on frequent ‘micro wins’ here. Image: Unsplash

How to stay consistent… with mindfulness

Focus on frequent ‘micro wins’ here. “Set yourself a challenge – perhaps 10 minutes, for 10 days – of meditation, visualisation or prayer” suggests Sharma. “It will increase your strength, willpower and sense of self.” Eventually you can build up to 20 minutes daily, which is part of his aforementioned ‘victory hour’. “Once again, doing this in the morning will set you up for a day of consistency,” he adds. “How you start your day determines how it unfolds.”

The other benefit of taking time for your mind daily – as opposed to a two-week Bali retreat – is that, Sharma says, it’s much more ‘powerful’ to find peace and freedom in our busy day-to-day lives. “Healing yourself should take place within a normal human life – with responsibilities and work and childcare and traffic,” he explains. This will make it more sustainable, and therefore possible to maintain. 

We have to create stillness to hear the quiet whispers of our wisdom – through things like walks in nature or doing some journalling. Image: iStock

How to stay consistent… with work/life balance

Prioritise what’s important to you. “Joy should be your GPS – think of the people, places and pursuits that bring you it,” says Sharma. “I’ve mentored billionaires and sports superstars who have achieved so much and yet feel empty,” he explains, of how there are forms of ‘wealth’ other than money – like health and family – that need to be nurtured. “One of the greatest traps as humans we can fall into is to live our neighbour’s life without being authentic to ourselves.”   

To find out exactly what that is, you need to make time for reflection. “We have to create stillness to hear the quiet whispers of our wisdom – through things like walks in nature or doing some journalling,” explains Sharma, who right now is carving out space in his downtimes for his hobbies of mountain biking and learning Italian. “I had one client who had a checklist of 33 micro habits that needed to be done every day for him to feel at his best,” he recalls. “But if you don’t have any joy you’re taking it too seriously – you want room in your day to simply gaze at the tulips in the park.” Wise words very much worth heeding, since if it’s good enough for Branson…  

Turning out the lights on time needs to be reframed as an act of self-care, says Sharma.

How to find consistency…with sleep routines

Turning out the lights on time needs to be reframed as an act of self-care, says Sharma. “This leads to self-love,” he explains, noting that prioritising your bedtime routine should be viewed as giving you the gift of feeling refreshed the next day. However, in order to do this, we often need to have stronger boundaries - such as declining friends’ social plans that extend well into the evening or pushing back on that family member who tempts you to stream ‘just one more episode’. 

Taken to the extreme, those who walk over us and ignore our wishes are ‘energy vampires’, warns Sharma, whose negative influence can leave their mark on all our health habits. “If you want to be more consistent, you can’t be around critics and cynics who drain you - clean up your circle like you would your diet, and let go of the ‘dream stealers’,” he says. “You can be near toxic people or you can live your greatest life - but you can’t do both.” 

Originally published as How to make healthy habits stick, according to a celebrity self-help guru