Building the Habit of Habit Building
It's the final week of the year, and for many of us, that means reflecting on the year that is ending, and contemplating our visions for the year to come.
I'll be creating some posts in the next few days about my end of 2017 accounting and all the plans I'm putting into motion for 2018. But for today, I just wanted to share some thoughts that came up for me while reflecting on the last twelve months.
I feel like each year, for me, at least, seems to follow a loose theme. I've had Letting Go years and Getting Lost years and Finding My Way years. There have been Financial Ruin years, Emotional Upheaval years, and Picking Up the Pieces years.
2017, I think, has been a Habit Building year. The focus, the theme over the past twelve months has been to try a new (to me) method of advancing my personal life agenda, or of achieving success and fulfillment with my goals and visions. The new way has been to make habits of the tasks that will get me to where I want to be.
This has not been easy. For one thing, I'm not well accustomed to routines, and daily habits seem to run contrary to my spontaneous nature. For another, Life Always Happens. Family emergencies. Unexpected occurrences. Depression.
I had several habits I was trying to build this year--from a daily fiction writing practice, to a more consistent exercise routine. I did not stick to all of the habits all year. I could go back and list all the things that got in the way, but that would not be helpful to me or illustrative for the point I am trying to make in this post.
I didn't stick with my habits the whole time, but when I was doing them, I was doing them, and the results were fantastic. When I look back upon the last twelve months and ask myself, "What did I accomplish?", I'm faced with a rather satisfactory list. Because even though I didn't practice my habits all the time, I did keep the habit of habit building forefront in my mind. Which meant that when I got distracted by life, or just got lazy and slipped off the habit for a few days or weeks, I was still telling myself every day, "It's the habits that bring you what you want."
And even on those days when I felt like I'd done nothing and was a total failure, I still usually practiced at least one of my habits. Even if it was just taking my vitamins in the morning, or drinking four glasses of water in a day. So even though I have not (yet) succeeded in thoroughly cementing all of my habits into a daily routine, I feel that I definitely have developed the habit of developing good and healthy habits.
I can't imagine a better habit to have under my belt, heading into 2018.
Great point of view! You don't need to be perfect, even when building habits. A missed day is never a reason for giving up - you just continue the next day like nothing happened. I think that's the biggest problem for many people when it comes to habits building. If I accidently don't brush my teeth today, should I give up on teeth brushing at all?
I found that having a simple "base" and after that simply tack things onto that base. You do the base fine and dandy, and the other stuff comes consequently. When you include one new propensity (the base, or something different that is straightforward), including the rest winds up noticeably programmed.
Having a simple base is a great idea.
It sounds like you've made some great progress, and kept with it through some pretty trying times.
Steemit completely derailed the fiction-writing habit I'd been honing when a friend turned me on to it in June. But since I replaced it with an article-writing habit, I'm fine with that.
Yeah. Me, too.
I'm not. I love Steemit for many reasons, and I enjoy contributing articles here, but fiction (and particularly long fiction) should really be my main focus, I feel. It is not easy to commit to both on a daily basis, so if I have to choose, I'll choose to practice my fiction-writing habit.
It is hard to do both on a daily basis, isn't it?
I find it helps some to "shift gears" physically. For some reason I do a lot better writing fiction with pen and paper (or typewriter) while obviously Steemit needs to be at the computer.
Great post, as usual, Starr. This is very appropriate at this time of year. Good to focus on those habits that support activities that make us into who we want to be. Thank you for sharing this.
Upvoted 100% Happy New Year!
I also Love You steemit
I'd have to say that at least one of the themes of my year was habit building too. Maybe because I read "The Power of Habit" and got all psyched or maybe because it was just in the air for everyone this year. I too didn't stick with all the habits I set for myself but I love that you pulled the positive out of it and realized that developing habits is a habit. Makes me feel more accomplished too ( :
To a great year and a better one to come. I have good feelings about this one!
Nice you