Tips to Create Habits that Serve

Today is February 19...the 50th day of the year. How do I know this? Because today I'm celebrating 50 days in a row of meditating, yoga, and walking. Woo hoo! Why make an effort to do something everyday? These practices help me to feel good inside and out, and when I’m feeling better and stronger, this helps me feel more able to handle my life and whatever life throws at me.

Even knowing this, there are times when it can be hard to stay consistent. The very times when I MOST need these practices in my life, the times when I am MOST in need of the peace, grounding, and strength that they give me, are the times when it can feel like there’s no time or energy to do them.

How?

I’m not an expert on habits, but I can share what I am learning. Some of these “tips” are personal, but a lot of them show the truth of the common wisdom that we hear about habits and resolutions.

Are you wondering how I know it’s been 50 days? Monitoring is very helpful when habits are forming, much like stickers on a child’s chore chart.

Streaks can be powerfully motivating. Doing yoga from time to time gives me constant choices to make—Is this a day that I will do yoga? Am I too tired? Is there something else I should be doing? Gretchen Rubin talks about this in “Better than Before,” the idea that habits eliminate the need for self-control and reduce the fatigue of decision-making. Setting the intention to do it every day helps...and then once I’ve done it a few days in a row, a kind of momentum is established. A week in a row! 15 days in a row! The longer it goes, the less we’re inclined to break the chain.

If you want to build a habit that you can do every day, small and consistent is better than large and impressive. Large and impressive is fun for when things are going well, when you have plenty of time and energy, when you’re feeling excited about your brand new habit. But then you wake up late, or you’re sick or injured... and it becomes overwhelming. Guess how many minutes of yoga or meditation “counts” for me? Ten minutes. That’s it. That isn’t a very long time, and that’s the point. I can always find a way to fit ten minutes into my day. Even if I don’t really feel like doing it, I can convince myself to spend just ten minutes. And lots of times, I spend a lot longer than ten minutes... but the promise of “just ten minutes” is enough to get me started.

This protects me again the dreaded “all or nothing” mentality. John Berardi, PhD, wrote, “The ‘all or nothing’ mentality rarely gets us ‘all.’ It usually gets us ‘nothing.’” Along the same lines, with walking, people have really been talking about 10,000 steps lately as a daily goal. Last January I tried 10,000. I made it into February, and it was difficult! I often found myself walking around my neighborhood in the dark just before bedtime when I realized I hadn’t done my steps. This got really annoying and maybe I went on a trip or got sick or something...but the next thing I knew, I was barely walking at all. So for me, for now, just talking a walk is a more helpful goal.

Find a time that works for you. Morning is my best time, period. I am a morning person, so I feel excited to start the day. Because my husband isn’t a morning person, it also means that morning is a quiet and focused time of the day for me to do my yoga and meditation. And when I start the day with these calming practices, I feel better going into whatever comes next. Finally, when I don’t do these practices in the morning, I find it a bit harder to find time later in the day, or I risk forgetting about them until bedtime. So for me, morning is when I gravitate toward these practices. I’m not trying to push for mornings, just for choosing a time that works well for you in your temperament, energy level, and life circumstance.

Know what's important. I have other habits that I’d love to cultivate as well. But I can’t do everything all the time. So, when I can't do them all, I focus on just the few I feel are important for me: yoga, meditation, and walking. I keep building these three core habits. (Again, I’m not trying to convince anyone that these are the three most important habits to build. I’m saying that whatever is MOST important to you...know it.) Again, this is a rejection of the unhelpful “all or nothing” mentality, and it particularly helpful when time and energy and motivation are in short supply.

Know why it's important. There are many times in the past 50 days that I’ve needed to come back to the why of all of this. Why am I doing this? One was when my back was injured for a few days. All of a sudden I thought I might need to quit doing yoga altogether because “how can I do 30 minutes of ‘serious’ yoga” with an injured back? I didn’t like the idea of quitting, and I also knew that pushing through pain would be dangerous. So I went back to why. What made me want to do yoga every day? Because I am tired of ignoring my body. I’m tired of being in pain with muscle tension, trying to ignore the pain, and just continuing to let the pain and tension increase day by day. I want to take time every day to listen to what my body needs and address these needs. Once I reiterated these thoughts, the question of “do I need to quit?” was simple. Yes, I needed to quit doing 30 minutes of “serious” yoga while my back was injured. But no, I didn’t need to quit tending to my body with gentle stretching and movement. Gentle and mindful movement is highly recommended to recover from back injuries, and the honoring of my back injury is a big part of listening to the needs of my body. (This goes along with the idea of adjusting our idea of what an accomplishment is.) In the past, an injury like this would totally derail me from my habits because I refused to adjust the habits at all. But going back to the why of it helps me to respond wisely when obstacles arose.

This brings me to my last thought: be nimble. Don’t let yourself get frustrated and blocked by made-up limitations. This is just life, after all, and everything changes. Cultivate the mindset of a scientist or an anthropologist who is just running some different experiments to see what works. If you’re seeking to learn and grow, don’t be afraid to make some changes. Like Aaliyah sang, “If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again.”

And finally, to use the words of a friend, wallow in your accomplishments. We find it easy to wallow in a sense of failure, but what will help here is to congratulate yourself! Celebrate! Brag to someone who cares about you! Let yourself enjoy what you’ve done. There is a particular sense of joy in following through with something—that feeling of congruence between what you WANT to do and what you DO. Savor it.