When I was a kid, I loved collecting all sorts of things. I had collections of stickers, playing cards, beer mats, small china animals (the type you get from gift shops in seaside resorts), and Liverpool FC badges. Each time we went to a game at Anfield, my dad would buy me one from the stalls that lined the streets on the way into the ground. And yes, I was also a rather avid collector of stamps! But, to be fair to me, they were special ones - the First Day Covers that commemorated the release of a new set of stamps or that marked special occasions like the anniversary of D-Day or the Queen's birthday.
OK, that's probably too much information about stamps. But there is a reason why I'm telling you about my geeky childhood - healthy habits.
As I'm sure you know by now, I'm a big believer in developing healthy habits. Why? Because of the principle of 'Reversibility'. Or put more simply, the 'if you don't use it, you lose it' principle. Mostly you hear about this principle in relation to exercise. If you stop being active, then you lose your hard-earned fitness gains. But, the truth is it applies to every single healthy habit going. You cannot store physical or mental health, fitness, and wellbeing for very long. It's a bit like looking after a plant. You must feed and water it regularly to ensure it survives and grows. In the same way, you must keep feeding and watering your body and mind with healthy habits. Only that way can you thrive.
So what? That sounds fairly obvious.
It does. And it is. But that doesn't mean that we humans are very good at following the principle. On the contrary - we often find ourselves trying hard to take up one healthy habit or another, only to give it as soon as something goes wrong.
If you want to find lasting wellbeing, you have to find another way. I believe that way lies in thinking of yourself as a collector. Your challenge in life is to collect as many healthy habits as you can along the way. You might review how you're doing in the same way that children compare their sticker collections in the playground:
'Got, got, got, need.' (Children of the 80s and 90s will know what this means).
Take a moment to look at your lifestyle - highlight the healthy habits you already have in place, and then pick a new one, a 'shiny one', that you want to collect next. I say a 'shiny one' because those were the stickers we desperately wanted for our albums when we were kids. It was always football stickers that I collected. The shiny ones were usually the club badges, and I thought they looked amazing!
As kids, we never gave up until every gap in our sticker album was filled. And that's the way you have to see collecting healthy habits. It's a lifelong quest to collect more and more. And unlike stickers, you can also refine the ones you have already collected. If there are no new habits that you want or feel able to work on right now, is there anything you can do to improve an existing one just one per cent more?
Working on healthy habits has to be a lifelong quest because, as I've already mentioned - if you stop practising any one of them, you lose the benefits. Yes, you have the choice to give up, to stop one healthy habit or another, or even all of them. But are you sure you want to? Or do you know that in a few weeks, you'll regret it and want to start again? Only with even more work to do to get back to where you were - like a real-life game of snakes and ladders.
In reality, your wellbeing is one giant game of snakes and ladders. Sometimes you're doing well, climbing the rungs each day, and feeling great. At other times things are tough, and you're sliding down the back of that slippery serpent. When that happens, you have to learn to go again. Winning comes from being determined, stubborn, never giving up, trying with everything you have, forever.
What will you collect next?
That's my question for you today. And I don't mean stamps! What's next on your healthy habits list?