Here we are 10 days into a new year and I’m wondering what do you know now that you didn’t know on day one?
Maybe you have figured out some things that you like about the tasks involved in the habit you are building.
Perhaps you have figured out a good time of day to establish your practice.
Maybe you have figure out what you don’t like or what time *doesn’t* work for you and you are figuring out some workarounds.
Perhaps you have discovered that you need to take action first and plan later.
Maybe you’ve discovered that your initial idea doesn’t actually interest you all that much or perhaps you’ve realize that it is much more interesting than you anticipated.
Perhaps you want to change a few things or maybe you want to keep them exactly the same.
Sure, 10 days may not be enough time to do a full assessment of your practice so far but it is enough time to gather good information to shape your plans going forward.
10 days is enough time to begin to determine if your reluctance is due to resistance or if you need to change things a little. (Resistance often diminishes with persistence or with creating a low bar for success – if you need to change things up, persistence and a low bar probably don’t help much.)
10 days is enough time to realize that your approach to planning needs some refinement.
10 days is a decent amount of information.
But, please be kind to yourself in how you use that information.
Gathering information of this sort is NOT about judging yourself or finding ‘mistakes’ – it’s about adjusting your approach, your processes, your systems so they are helping you instead of making habit-building harder.
It’s about using that information to celebrate the good and to support yourself in facing the challenges.
For example – if you love the way it feels when you exercise right after work but you have found yourself getting derailed because you are hungry at that point in the day, that’s excellent information. Getting derailed isn’t an indication that you have failed or that it is the wrong time of day to exercise, it’s information that’s telling you to have an energizing snack late in the afternoon or on your way home from work. By making good use of 10 days of information, you can celebrate the victory of finding a good time of day to exercise AND you can address the challenge of getting derailed.
Your victories and your challenges may be more complex than that example but as long as you are kind to yourself about it, the information you have gathered so far (and that you will continue to gather) will help you to find ways to meet your needs and establish your new habits.
So, perhaps you could take a few minutes today to figure out what you know about your practice so far and how you might want to celebrate, enhance, adjust, or change things going forward.
Here is your gold star for your efforts:
