Do you ever wish your life was just a little bit different? Do little bad habits annoy you because you feel like you can and should do better? First, chill out, you're human and second duh, you're human, of course you do! I read atomic habits, watched countless webinars, masterclasses, interviews, videos on forming good habits and still continued to beat myself up because I felt that I wasn't hitting my potential. It wasn't until I came home one day and felt a disconnect between my mind and my body. After a long morning and afternoon of meetings and appointments I was tired. My body wanted to follow the habit of going upstairs to my bedroom, lay down on my bed, watch a couple of TV episodes, and close my eyes for 30 minutes to give myself a brain break. However, my mind really did not want to do this. Yes, I was tired, but I was tired of being tired and tired of feeling like I was always behind on my To Do list. I didn't want to continue on the habit of shutting down for and hour after getting home. My neurons had formed this pathway in my brain creating this habit and I was kind of sick of it.
Now, let me be perfectly clear, there was a time when my beat and broken emotional state needed a rest. For a couple of years as I was going through earth shattering events in my life I NEEDED to lie in bed and watch a show or take a nap before continuing on with my day, and it was important for me to listen to my body & mind's needs. What I am saying now is that I was continuing to pay attention to my needs and act on them. What my mind was telling me was that I no longer needed to follow this habit. It was telling me that I had healed enough from the trauma to be able to move and and develop new neural pathways.
So, what did I do instead? I took a deep breath and forced myself to do an easy task that would also make me feel good. This day it just happened to be doing the dishes. My house was a disaster and overwhelming, it would have been so easy to follow "bad habits," aka formed neutral pathways, and take a rest, but I listened to my intuition and picked the smallest, easiest thing I could do and did the dishes. It was hard at first. It felt almost like walking against the current of a river inside my mind. But once I made the decision and stuck with it that "going against the flow" feeling went away.
After doing the dishes I did a quick internal check to see what my body was telling me to do next: keep going on the To Do List, or go take a rest? After the first initial discomfort of going against my norm I found that I wasn't as tired as I thought I was and chose to keep going with my daily tasks. I had a second wind of sorts and ended up getting a ton done & felt great! I have done this every time I have gotten home from anything: anytime I got in the car and drove somewhere I made sure I did at least one simple task instead of following the habit of resting when I got home. By doing so I have developed a new neural pathway of progressing with my day instead of shutting down as soon as I get home. Now I feel like I get more accomplished and I get to CHOOSE to take a break and rest if my body and mind need it instead of just habit.
what is a bad habit you would like to break? Take notice of when, where, why and how these bad habits are occurring, then make one small shift to gear you away from that bad habit. Repeat that shift over and over until it is not so painful and asses your progress. Comment below to share your stories!