Habits are like water. Either they will refresh you or drown you. It’s your habits that are moving you towards your goals or draining your energy, and the problem is that, like water, we see right through them expecting our answers to be something else. We don’t feel productive: it’s our habits. We don’t feel healthy: it’s our habits. We can’t rid the cycle of negativity in our heads: it’s our habits.
Without a subjective eye, however, we carelessly dismiss this probability and blame anything–or anyone–else.
PRACTICES is a great little book about honing in on those morning and evening habits, those practices, that will decrease the misery of running in circles, and I’m looking forward to reading your reviews on it (have you left one yet?) But reading about practices, and deciding upon and implementing those practices, are two different things.
That’s why I made up this little calendar to help you. It’s what I use to help me. I know there are smartphone apps to help you with forming new habits, but I find that little computer to be one of the biggest hinderances to focusing on anything, much less something new. Besides, using a colored pencil to put a big “X” on each day is satisfying.
Either way, you need to give a few real reasons why your new want-to-be habit is important to you. With this calendar example above, I used single words to remind me. For example, I want to journal every day, so “think…plan…pray” were my reasons why. It reminded me why I wanted that habit in the first place.
Every day, I assessed how I did, crossing out things I did or circling those things I missed. After 20 days, I noticed I was far better with my morning routines than my evening routines. So before going on to the next 20 days, I reassessed, and began again.
I also found that giving myself a reward after 20 days was helpful. In this instance, I wanted to reward myself for moving up a level in MuTu so I promised myself a new autumn cardigan if I accomplished that. It was a great carrot to keep me moving (pun intended), so I put more rewards at the end of the next 20 days for my practice goals.
How are your daily practices? Are your habits keeping your mind clear, your home happy? If not, consider reading the book and putting your habits on paper for a subjective look at how you’re doing (you can find the calendar HERE).
After all, the only habits worth having are the ones you want to keep.
Blessings,
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