Now that I am almost through a full year of my commitment, I am starting to really notice the unique times.
In the normal everday tedium of good habit, once you get there that is, you will fall into a rhythm. This is generally good, however it will start to show signs of wear. You will begin to take shortcuts and the quality of your habits will suffer.
Days where you are out of normal routine, like a holiday, can be disruptive in a good or bad way.
The bad way if you take a break from keeping your habits. It takes less then 3 days to break a habit. In the weaker times of the first 200 days this is really critical. By my calculation you will have some disruptive event at least once every 60 days. You have to get past these disruptions. Here are some ideas that I have collected:
1. You can go easy on the habits, still keeping them, just go deliberately light and mentally give yourself a break. Keep the habit regardless of where you are at or how light. Travelling with family? Do the habit anyway – even if it is just a check in with the process and nothing more.
2. You can double down on the habit. Instead of going light, magnify the habit 3x what you would normally do. Punch yourself and take your habit to the next level. Either increase the quantity, quality, or intensity. Perhaps all three. This will propel you forward and overcome the routine downward slide that occurs in the day to day habit formation.
3. You can keep your current habits and also experiment on a new ones. Of the many habits that I have developed this last 319 days, I have tried many more. It is ok to decide the habit is not going to work, it was ill conceived, needs some revision. Time off of routine is a great time for new habit formation.
The bottom line is to do things that disrupt your usual pattern of abandoning a habit during time off. How many times have you “fell off the wagon” during the holidays?
Time to change that.
Guy Reams (319)
365 Member
