This March was a month of habit restarts for me. I restarted daily jogging in February. So fueled by this, I moved on to restart my meditation practice, dancing, going to bed on time, and a daily gratitude journal. Alongside the restarts there is also a big new addition, daily creative writing.
There is a sense of urgency in this. We are going to have a new baby in a month, and I am hoping that some (or all) of these habits will stick through the sleepless 6 months. So this last month will be crucial to making sure these habits are more settled in me before things get really hectic and starting anything new will be much harder.
What bothers me though, is my optimism. As I look through my notes I can see that I was in this exact place at least 3 other times earlier. Where I tried to take on a lot of habits, kept them for a time, and then dropped all of them. In 2018, then 2020, then at the start of 2022. Each time I would start taking on good habits, building them up slowly and taking on new ones. And then something would come along, big and stressful and consuming, a baby, a divorce, a sickness, a new job and I would slowly abandon all of my newly gained habits.
So is this pointless? Is this just something I do with myself and Facebook when I am feeling antsy and undetermined? Is my approach flawed? Am I doing too much? Is this not something someone like me can do or sustain?
Here I can go down the road of self-doubt and self-criticism. That I am incapable, broken, lazy, will never change etc. But I know it’s not true. I have, and do change and grow. But it’s complicated and messy. And perhaps acquiring life long positive habits is especially complicated and messy.
There is probably a flaw to my approach. I take on too much, and I don’t properly integrate the habits I take on. But even with these “flawed” attempts I am seeing some long term differences. With each attempt it gets easier to restart my positive habits. The first time I started jogging or meditating these were massive internal undertakings that took up most of my focus and willpower for months. Now it’s quick. I re-read my blog post about jogging and my grandpa from 4 years ago, and then restarted jogging that day. I then noticed that I stopped meditating, so I started again. Because I know it’s good for me, and that it works.
Which is another benefit of all of my habit starting attempts. I got to experiment with a lot of habits, and got to see which ones give me the most benefit for the willpower used to start them. Jogging. Meditating. Going to Bed on time. Dancing. Daily Gratitudes. These are now my core go-tos because I know they have a powerful effect on me for the least input. Yes – I am yet to stick with any of them for more than 2 years. But I know they work. I have the confidence that this is good for me.
This is the bit of wisdom that I want to share in this post – with myself most of all. Big things – like core healthy habits – are hard and complicated. The way to them may be messy, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. We are not gurus or Youtube influencers – we may need a couple of tries to make something big and important. The failures and restarts are an important part of the process. Perhaps even an unavoidable part.
So this is where I am this month. I am restarting a number of core healthy habits. Maybe this attempt will be the final one. Maybe – but maybe not. Either way, I have the confidence that I will come back to these habits even if I drop them. Because they are good for me, and I know how to start them. It will be messy and complicated. But I will get there – in my own way, on my own terms, when I am ready for it. Meanwhile… core habits are still something to work on.
