So I’ve been working on some new habits in my life.
Simple stuff, but actually really trying to get them to STICK and become real habits, not just a thing that I do.
-Read for 10 minutes a day each morning
-Meditate for 10 minutes a day
-Run Positive Focus (it’s a drill to reframe a stressful
thought, basically I question the thought and
write down the lesson I took from it)
First off I’ll start with WHY these do not stick as habits usually. It’s because they don’t offer an immediate results or impact.
They are longer term things that when they become a cumulative effect of the day, I’m a better and calmer person.
But it’s hard to measure, so sometimes when life gets in the way or I get lazy, I want to skip them.
And in the past (even just a month ago), I would have totally skipped them, then I would have lost the momentum of the daily practice.
This past weekend I traveled to see some college friends and on Saturday night I didn’t run my positive focus. I was pissed at myself but I just sucked it up and ran two positive focus drills the next day.
In the past I would have been like “screw it, it’s not working anyway” and I would have stopped all together- momentum gone.
What’s different now?
I’ve re-framed my mind so I realize that even if it’s not PERFECT action at least I took action.
Sound familiar? How many times have you done this….
-I don’t have an hour to work out so I won’t do it at all
-I can’t work out 5 days so it’s not worth it
-I ate that cupcake so screw it, I’ll have another
Then we lose momentum and the positive habits go away, because you didn’t see them immediate impact.
But ultimately what happens?
The pain of the REGRET we feel from not fulfilling our promise to ourself, eventually becomes MORE than the pain of just not doing it. So we push through that temporary resistance and do it.
This is not a rah-rah clappy cheerleader blog post for you about “just doing it.”
I want you to think about it- when you break a promise to yourself….do you feel pain?
I know when you break a promise to someone else, you do.
Treat yourself like you’d treat someone else (too cheerleader-ish…sorry). But it’s true, we would never act or speak to someone else the way we do it to ourselves.
Here’s the deal though, in order to make these habits stick, you need accountability. You need to make your intentions known. Tell someone else that you’re doing X, Y and Z and you want them to ask you about it.
We do this as a team of coaches at DPT. We all set our monthly goals and each week we check on how they are going. For me personally, I have a white board calendar in my office and every day that I complete my goal I put a check mark on the day. The goal for the month is to not break the streak (aka the promise to myself that I will do it).
So where are you holding yourself accountable, or are you keeping the goal a secret?
We have two simple ways for you:
1). Write that goal on the 30 day board at the gym
2). Want even more accountability on a daily and weekly basis from Emily and a small, intimate group of people just like you?
We are opening up a couple of spaces for Nutrition Accountability (NAP) where you’ll get each of your goals assessed, tracked and monitored weekly so you hit your targets. You’ll get support, clarity and accountability that completely complements what you’re doing in the gym.
Interested? Email [email protected] for all the details.