Ahhh, two-thousand-&-divine! There was so much hype towards the end of 2008, with plenty of us swearing up & down that 2009 was going to be different, by gum! Well, we’re now a third of the way through the first month of 2009, so it’s time to check in & see how you’re feeling. How are things going for you? Odds are good that if you haven’t switched up any of your routines or habits, January 2009 seems eerily similar to December 2008… & November 2008… & October 2008!
The real way to implement change in your life is to alter your habits. One of the major things that has changed my life in the past is setting up a daily routine that I enjoy & which I know works. It sounds boring, I know, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s the beauty of it — it’s your routine, so if you want to start the day with naked sun salutations, a massive salad or pyjama dance-off, you can! Be imaginative! It doesn’t have to be epic zombie time, complete with bleary-eyes, stubbed toes & bland breakfast!
So, what’s your daily routine?
Be honest! Do you really wake up at 6am & do yoga every morning, or are you more inclined to rush out the door at 8.49 without so much as brushing your hair? My routine has been a bit of a mess lately too, which is what prompted me to write this article! I’ve been eating all kinds of rubbish, my exercising has been sporadic, I’ve been sleeping in until 10 or 11 every morning, & things just feel really off. I am convinced (convinced!) that Mercury retrograde is partially to blame for this, which just adds to my feeling that now is the time to look back at what hasn’t been working in my routine, & come up with yummy new ways to move forward.
We often fool ourselves into thinking that changing our old habits is an impossibility, an exercise in futility, a waste of time. It’ll never work, we think, completely oblivious to the fact that our current lifestyle isn’t working for us either! How bad could a little change be?
The reason most people repeatedly fail to make something new into a habit is because of their fear of change. Why is this? When we decide we want to do something new, part of us is gung-ho, excited, chomping at the bit to get going. But another part of us is terrified at the idea of shaking things up. We often jump to a far-fetched conclusion which seems rational at the time, but really isn’t, like, “Oh my god, if I start down this path, I’m going to have to do an hour of jumping jacks every morning UNTIL I DIE.” So we never even begin, or perhaps we do it twice before giving up.
It usually takes 30 to 40 repetitions of something before it becomes a habit or routine, & it is perhaps because of this reason that Steve Pavlina is a great advocate of the 30-day trial concept. It manages to skirt ye olde freak out because you’ve set a time-limit. If you’re absolutely hating your routine on day 23, you know you only have 7 more days to go, which makes it all seem much more tolerable.
30 days is also an excellent length because it gives you time to gather real data about what you’re doing. If you change the way you eat or the amount you exercise, it’s common that the first week will be rough. You’ll be exhausted, detoxing, emotionally haggard — all sorts of things will come up — so if you stick at for 30 days, you’ll get past that first difficult stage & into the really juicy bit.
Enough talking, time for action. Let’s make some lists. I’ll go first, then it’s your turn!
What isn’t working for you in your routine?
For me, sleeping in until 10 or 11 is totally not doing it for me. I always feel like I’ve wasted the day when I do that, especially since I know that I get my best work done first thing.
The food I’m eating isn’t doing it for me either. I’m probably about 80% vegan right now — which is good — but I’m eating pretty much all vegan junk food, which is not where I want to be! Raw power please!
It’s totally time to get back into regular exercise. I meant to do this when I got back from Auckland but somehow it didn’t happen. I had a really rough 3 days, & last night after eating about six pieces of toast & a whole lot of rocky road, I decided it was time for a work-out. My short 30 minute cardio blast had me feeling better than I have all week.
How would you like your routine to look?
Wake up at 7.30 (or earlier) Do some gentle stretching & then half an hour of exercise Shower & get pretty Make a big smoothie, drink that & down vitamins as I check my email Set intentions for the day in my Moleskine Start working!
What steps do you need to take to make this a reality?
Thankfully I have most of these things sorted out already. I have a huge stack of exercise DVDs which I really enjoy doing (I know, what a nerd!), as well as my two brand spanking new HOOPS which I can use if I’m not in the mood for a prescribed routine (& which I use during the day anyway). I went to the health shop yesterday — that place is like pure porn for a hardcore Virgo! — & bought some supplements & vitamins I’d run out of, including maca which I am going to put into my smoothies! I also went to the supermarket & bought some stuff for making smoothies. Yay!
So… what about you?
Where are you at & where do you want to be? What kind of steps do you need to take to switch up your routine for good (um, I mean, 30 days!)? Do you need more information or encouragement? Take some time & think about it. What small changes do you think you could make which would really improve your quality of life?
Some of you will remember the iCiNG Transformation Challenge which ran for a month last April. Anyone keen for a repeat performance?!
Extra For Experts:
How To Establish New Habits The No-Sweat Way using Kaizen, from Zen Habits. =>
How to Establish New Habits the No-Sweat Way
“The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” - Samuel Johnson
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.
Have you ever had problems establishing a new habit? Maybe I should ask, have you ever not had problems establishing a new habit? Whether it’s getting up early, going for a daily run, losing weight, writing a journal – let’s face it: most attempts to establish a new habit end in a dismal flop.
In her book “This year I will…”, Andy Ryan, an expert in collaborative thinking, spells out why change is difficult:
Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain….If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do.
That’s exactly how it is for me. One part of me is gung-ho about making changes, and the other part just turns tail and rushes off in the opposite direction!
Let’s take a look at how we can affect change without giving ourselves a fright. Or do we just have to accept that we are creatures of habit and nothing much will ever change?
In a New York Times article based upon the research by Andy Ryan it says:
Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.
But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.
How do we create pathways of change so gently that we don’t take fright?
There is a very interesting Japanese philosophy called Kaizen which can help us do just that. Kaizen focuses on continuous but small change.
In order to find out how Kaizen can help us to establish new habits, let’s take a look at change in terms of momentum. Just imagine for a moment that you are the captain of an ocean liner. If you decided to change course 90 degrees, there would be two different ways to accomplish this. One way would be to stall the ship’s forward momentum and then take up a new course.
Big changes mean that momentum is lost.
The other way to change course would be to use the forward momentum and to incrementally change course until the full 90 degrees are accomplished.
If we change direction little by little, we can use momentum to affect change.
Andy Ryan says:
The small steps in Kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.
With a strategy of continuous low-level change, we are able to sidestep the number one barrier to change: fear.
Let’s see how this would work in our daily life. Let’s imagine that you want to get up an hour earlier each morning in order to be more productive.
Strategy No. 1: You grit your teeth, set your clock an hour earlier, and struggle out of bed. This might work for a few days, or for longer if you’re disciplined. But chances are that you’ll be back in your old groove as soon as you begin to feel tired and stressed.
Strategy No. 2: You use the Kaizen method and get up one minute earlier each day. Two months later you would be getting out of bed one hour earlier – without even noticing the change!
You can see by this example what a powerful strategy for change Kaizen is.
The Kaizen method of continuous incremental improvements isn’t just a personal philosophy. It was embraced by industry giants such as Toyota and has enabled them to become world leaders in automotive innovation.
The word that leaps out at me when I read about the principles of Kaizen is ‘continuous’. I don’t know how it is for you, but in my life personal growth happens in bursts – with longish pauses in between.
This is rather like doing a massive run or a superhard yoga class one day—and then letting all exercise slip for the next days because your body feels sore. A few days later you feel the need for a hefty dose of exercise again – and that brings you back to the massive run or the superhard yoga class. And so it goes on and on…
What if we we kept our exercise routine going each day and very gradually increased the length or difficulty of training? What if we used this gentle but powerful way to effect all change in our life?
What’s your sense of how the Kaizen method would work for habits that you want to establish?
Mary Jaksch is a Zen master, psychotherapist, and author. She’s a Karate Black Belt, and loves dancing Argentine tango in skimpy dresses. Visit Mary’s blog, Goodlife Zen.
No comments:
Post a Comment