There’s no need to rush to make changes to your lifestyle. You can crowd out habits you want to change with those you want to adopt, little by little.

You tell yourself on Monday that you’re going to eat healthier all week, so you throw out all of your favorite treats, choke down boiled chicken and broccoli only to binge on burgers, fries and cake all weekend.

To crowd out involves intentionally incorporating positive behaviors and habits into your routine to gradually replace or “crowd out” the ones you want to change. Instead of focusing solely on eliminating undesirable habits, you introduce healthier alternatives. This creates a more sustainable and positive approach to mindset change. This concept applies to all areas of your self-care.

Because let’s face it, cold turkey doesn’t work and extreme rules beg to be broken.

Crowd out in the following ares

Health

1. Eliminating all stress = add in a breathing practice (in yoga I teach to let any distractions you cannot control be part of your sensory experience)
2. Negative thoughts = gratitude practice in your journal

Nutrition

1. Eliminating sweets = add more fruits to your daily meals
2. Cutting out meats = add in more vegetables to your daily meals

Lifestyle and personal development

1. Cutting screen time = adding in evening yoga practice for sleep
2. Closing social media accounts = spend more time reading and set a reading goal

The goal is to complete the healthier habit before the not-so-healthy one. Over time, this happens:

1. You don’t have room for the undesirable habit

You have less time to scroll on social media when you’re practicing yoga and meditation before bed. Also, that meditation high and relaxed muscles gently lull you to sleep and you don’t even want to reach for your phone. Or, you have less room in your tummy for sweets when you’re filling up on nature’s candy, fruits.

It’s impossible to feel gratitude and worry at the same time. By writing in your journal about your gratitude practice, you have less time for negative thoughts.

2. You no longer desire it

Aside from now having the room for those undesirable habits, you simply don’t desire them as much as you used to. When you know how good you feel by changing your eating or moving your body, the old ways don’t have the same appeal.

3. The healthier option becomes automatic

Then over time, you find yourself automatically loading up on fruits and vegetables, scheduling your workouts the week before, rolling out your mat without thinking about it and putting your phone away for some quiet time before bed. This is the ultimate goal – that the habits you used to crowd out are now the keystone habits that create the framework for a positive ripple effect in all areas of your life.

Small, consistent actions and mindset shifts can lead to significant changes over time.

This mindset shift encourages you to embrace a proactive and constructive approach of cultivating positive habits that naturally overshadow and replace the less desirable ones. You learn more about yourself by exploring the roots of your behaviors without going cold turkey or being hard on yourself.

What habits can you crowd out?