Whether today is a straightforward day or a tangly one, I’d like to remind you that everything you do in your habit-building practice counts.
Even if the task doesn’t seem like it will add much to your overall goal, it will add to you feeling like this habit is a regular part of your life.
And when something is a regular part of your life, it feels more in reach, more like something you can fit into your busiest days, more like something you can do without having to work up a lot of energy first.
So, if at all possible, I’d like to invite you to do something teeny related to your habit right away – or at least as soon as possible.
If you are trying to move more – do a little movement now. Even getting up out of your chair and sitting back down a couple of times in a row will count.
If you are trying to meditate more – try a few deep mindful breaths or a few minutes of doodling.
If you are still trying to plan your activities for the next while, maybe you could make a list of three things to try over the next few days.
If you are trying to create a journaling habit, maybe you could write down one thing you are hopeful about.
I know that these things may feel ‘too small’ right now. They may not feel like they have anything to do with the goal you are working toward. But, everything and anything you do that helps you to wrap your brain around the tasks and systems related to your goal will help you to feel like ‘the kind of person’ who can create the habits you are seeking to create.
So please, make those small efforts and celebrate every one of them.
Here are some gold stars to help you claim those victories:
Image description: a drawing of a vase full of gold stars on stems. The vase, which is decorated with gold trim, small black dots, and a band of squares around the neck, is resting on a tabletop.
Here’s three blog related books I plan to read. They all look great. Catherine might even organize one as a group book review, which I’ve enjoyed participating in in the past.
Are there any other feminist fitness books in your life this new year? Share in the comments.
“The pushback that shows up in conversations about fat justice takes exceedingly predicable form. Losing weight is easy—calories in, calories out. Fat people are unhealthy. We’re in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Fat acceptance “glorifies obesity.” The BMI is an objective measure of size and health. Yet, these myths are as readily debunked as they are pervasive. In “You Just Need to Lose Weight,” Aubrey Gordon equips readers with the facts and figures to reframe myths about fatness in order to dismantle the anti-fat bias ingrained in how we think about and treat fat people. Bringing her dozen years of community organizing and training to bear, Gordon shares the rhetorical approaches she and other organizers employ to not only counter these pernicious myths, but to dismantle the anti-fat bias that so often underpin them. As conversations about fat acceptance and fat justice continue to grow, “You Just Need to Lose Weight” will be essential to ensure that those conversations are informed, effective, and grounded in both research and history.”
“What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit. In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us. Rest Is Resistance is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey’s lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action, a battle cry, a field guide, and a manifesto for all of us who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.”
“For Petrzela, fitness is a social justice issue. She argues that the fight for a more equitable exercise culture will be won only by revolutionizing fitness culture at its core, making it truly inclusive for all bodies in a way it has never been. Examining venues from the stage of the World’s Fair and Muscle Beach to fat farms, feminist health clinics, radical and evangelical college campuses, yoga retreats, gleaming health clubs, school gymnasiums, and many more, Fit Nation is a revealing history that shows fitness to be not just a matter of physical health but of what it means to be an American.”
So, aside from me, who is on your team for your current habit-building project?
I mean, I assume you know that I am on your team – I’m here with the gold stars and the daily posts and the complete confidence that you will find a way to do the things you want to do.
You may not have thought about it that way, but I have. I didn’t randomly choose ‘Go Team!’ as my series title – I feel that we are all in this together, we’re all on the same team, so we might as well cheer each other on.
Ok, so far, there’s you and me, a formidable team if there ever was one, but who else are we going to recruit?
Let’s think of some roles you might want people to fill. You may not want everyone in every role to be talking at you every day but you want to know who to call on when you need them.
The Expert
Maybe you need an expert of some sort – a doctor, a trainer, a kinesiologist, a psychologist, a coach – in some cases the expert will be a trained professional in other cases they might just be someone with more experience than you.
You’ll want to choose your expert carefully, of course – you can’t have a hobbyist doctor or a self-trained kinesiologist, that’s not a safe way to proceed. You want an expert you can trust on a personal level and who has skills, training, and experience that you can trust.
The Cheerleader
Perhaps you’ll want a cheerleader – someone you can turn to when your enthusiasm is waning. This would be someone who believes you can do it, no matter what, and knows what to say to inspire you.
The Empathizer
Maybe you’ll need an empathizer – someone who can talk you through the hard bits and knows when to encourage you to take a break. This person will probably also be able to remind that these things take time and that you need to go easier on yourself as you build your habits.
The Tough One
Sometimes, we need empathy and cheerleading, sometimes we need someone to say ‘Enough of this foolishness, go do the thing!‘
Personally, I don’t call on my tough team members very often because ‘just do it!’ is rarely a useful technique for me but it is good to have someone like this to call on when you need them.
The Co-conspirator
This is someone who is trying to do something similar to what you are doing. They are working toward a similar or equivalent goal, they know the struggles, they use a similar vocabulary about it.
This is the person you can work in tandem with – encouraging and supporting each other and letting each other’s momentum pull you both along.
The Accountant
This is a person who will check in with you and make sure you have done the thing.
They will keep track of how often you have done it, how much progress you have made, and they will remind you when you forget.
This person doesn’t have to be an actual accountant, of course, but accountants are very good at keeping track of things so they would be an excellent choice for this role.
Other Ways To Assemble A Team
Like I said above, you don’t need to have someone in each of these roles on your team – I just hope you can (metaphorically) assemble people to give you the support you need and want as you challenge yourself in whichever ways you have chosen to.
And, your team doesn’t have to be people you know in person.
The most obvious answer is that you can ask people you know online to support you in some of these ways. They may be online friends or they may be people who you see in Facebook groups or on Discord or wherever.
You can join accountability/ encouragement groups related to the specific habit you are trying to build.
You can choose different Instagram accounts or websites or YouTube channels to visit depending on which kind of encouragement you need. It might be a good idea to make a list of which places to go for each kind so you don’t have to figure it out in the moment.
You can pick characters from TV shows or books and channel your inner Leslie Knope, your inner Wednesday Addams, your inner Wonder Woman, your inner Harriet the Spy and give yourself what you need today.
You can gather quotes from your favourite personal development books, your favourite novels, your favourite interviews and designate them as your ‘go-to’ for different types of encouragement.
And, of course, you can post in the comments of one of my Go Team! posts and I’ll cheer you on in whichever way you happen to need just then. I’m automatically on your team so it’s ok to reach out when you need me.
Be Kind To Yourself
My point here is that you don’t need to know everything and you don’t need to have every resource in your head at all times.
You can outsource some of your motivation, some of your information, some of your accountability – whatever resources you happen to need in a given moment.
Recognizing and utilizing these outside resources is an excellent way to be kind to yourself in the process of building a new habit.
*****
As always, here’s a team of gold stars for your efforts today whether you are team-building or contentedly working alone at the moment.
Go Team Us!
Image description: Nine gold stars with wavy gold lines between/behind them painted on black paper.
Every new year’s season we face the onslaught of marketing telling us that a “New Year, New You” is possible. A few years ago a friend and I started saying this phrase sarcastically, which then morphed into “New Year, Same Me,” sometimes with a few curse words added in for healthy measure.
As someone who tries to adopt a growth mindset in most areas, I really struggle with both ways of framing the new year. I’m not going to become a “new” person. And I’m not likely to stay the same, either. I hope to grow and change in ways that meet the current challenges and joys in my life. I don’t want to feel “stuck” with my old ways of doing things, but I am not going to be a new person at the stroke of January 1. I’m not going to get fitter, leaner, or smarter at the stroke of midnight.
Rose gold pen resting over an open yearly planner.
And yet there is a strong pull to believe that could happen, thanks to the layers upon layers of marketing that tell us it could be so. And then there are the headlines! Oh, the headlines. “It takes 21 days to build a habit” “Resolution-makers unlikely to stick with resolutions” “Resolution-makes do better with habit-building than those without resolutions” and on and on they go, each one contradicting the next.
Here’s what I know about me… your mileage may vary – I like the fresh hope a new week/month/year bring when thinking about habits or changes. I like to pause and reflect on the previous time span, thinking about how I met (or didn’t) meet the goals I put forth, what things brought me joy, and what changes I could make to get more of those experiences. I like to dream up fun ways to challenge myself and new experiences I could share with my loved ones.
I also know it takes me way longer than 21 days to build a habit. The last habit I intentionally adopted took me 6 months to adopt, and another 2 months before it felt like a natural part of my routine. Sometimes I do better with starting on a “new” block of time, but other times I’ll just randomly start a “streak” on a Tuesday afternoon and keep it going for some period of time.
I know I only have the resources to focuses on one or two new things at a time. I cannot drastically increase my fitness time and my writing time simultaneously. I can’t take up a winter outdoor activity without updating some of my outdoor clothing and gear, which may conflict with a “low-spend” resolution. I do better when I can plan some of these conflicts ahead of time. Maybe I’ll do a low-spend period with the exception of outdoor gear updates. Or I’ll decide in advance that I want to prioritize my writing over anything else when I run short of time and/or energy. My brain likes knowing what the plan is before the conflict happens, even if the plan doesn’t always get followed as written.
All that is to say…. I’m both overwhelmed with possibility and exhausted by the same. I’m embracing the quiet and cold season to reflect and rest. I’ve chosen my word of the year (create) but I haven’t really landed on what that means just yet.
How about you? Do you have plans to become a new you? The same old you? A mildly different you? What is your plan for the new year?
Amy Smith is a professor of Media & Communication and a communication consultant who lives north of Boston. Her research interests include gender communication and community building. Amy spends her movement time riding the basement bicycle to nowhere, walking her two dogs, and waiting for it to get warm enough for outdoor swimming in New England.
Most of the clients I see as a coach have been being hard on themselves for a long time.
They have an idea of what they want to do or how they want things to be but they can’t quite get there. And, since they are the common denominator in every (perceived) ‘failure’, they assume the problem is them.
They assume that since new habits and changing aspects of their lives are so hard for them, they are doing something wrong or they aren’t doing enough.
And if are finding it hard to establish a habit, of you are struggling or having to start over, you might be thinking that it is because you aren’t disciplined or that you aren’t working hard enough.
NOPE!
The reason this stuff is hard is because…
THIS STUFF IS HARD TO DO.
If you need proof about how hard this stuff is, just look at how many books and articles and blog posts and YouTube videos and courses there are on habit building.
If habit change was an easy process, there would be no market for those things.
And if there is a market for it, that means lots of people are seeking this advice.
So, what makes more sense – that you and a bunch of other people are lazy people who don’t work hard enough? Or that habit change is hard work that requires different strategies at different times for different people?
You know what I am going to say here, right?
The problem is NOT YOU.
You may need to change your systems, you may need to change your approach, you may need to change how you are thinking about some things, you may need to gather new resources or get more support, but the problem is not you.
You are doing the best you can with the resources you have.
The fact that you find habit building hard is not a reflection on you or your efforts, it is a reflection on the challenges inherent in the process.
This stuff is hard because it is hard.
Please be kind to yourself about the whole thing – self-compassion will serve you well today and in the long run.
Here is your gold star for today’s efforts – whether you are working on your habit, your plan for your habit, or if you are just working on accepting what I said above (it’s also hard to break the habit of blaming ourselves when things go wrong.)
Image description: a drawing of a somewhat irregularly shaped gold star that is outlined several times in black lines and surrounded by spirals (drawn with a black pen) and small gold dots.
A woman eats while using a computer. Photo from Pexels.
I often eat “mindlessly,” which to me means I shove food in my mouth without focus on my food or on my eating.
This post shares my own reflections and experiences on practices before (and during) eating. I recognize giving prayers before meals will vary widely based on one’s creed and belief system. Folks will see differently the goals of prayer and mindful eating: as entirely similar, or entirely separate, or somewhere in between.
Then
Growing up with Christian parents, we said a prayer, or “grace,” at dinner and holiday meals. It was the same short rhyme every time, chanted together in a singsong way. At the time I didn’t give too much thought about what it meant beyond what we were saying: thank you God for making our food possible. From my view as a kid, it was less a spiritual practice and more a tradition that temporarily kept us from digging into our delicious meal. (There was some satisfaction in calling out anyone who snuck an unblessed dinner roll.)
Now
This past winter I spent my holiday break at an all-inclusive resort. No longer in a Christian household, partner and I said no grace before our meals. Instead, we just helped ourselves, over and over. We arrived excited at the prospect of all-inclusive buffets, but after a week left feeling over-indulgent and mildly sick of food.
On the way home I flipped through the free inflight airplane media, and listened to a 10-minute Headspace meditation on mindfulness and eating. Like many mindful eating meditations, it encouraged slow eating, using all the senses to enjoy the food, and appreciating the feeling of food and fullness.
The mediation also walked me through visualizing where the food I was about to eat came from: what were the ingredients, who prepared the food, and how it travelled to arrive on my plate. Despite how often my partner and I talkedon our holiday about the vast quantities of food we ate or were going to eat, the Headspace meditation was a reminder of how infrequently I literally imagine the origins of my food right before I consume it.
People holding hands and praying. Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com
With hours left on the plane, I started to reflect on the differences between grace and gratitude before meals, as I understood them. In my experience, grace is a religious or spiritual practice, while mindful eating is intended to be a health and wellness practice. At my family table, grace was said using the same words and focused on expressing gratitude to the indirect food creator. This meditation I just did led me to gratitude thinking that was contextual and changing; my appreciation of the direct creators of my food would be different every time, depending on what food I was about to eat.
For me, there was one more difference: the mindful eating “gratitude” practice led me to thoughts on the ethics of my food consumption. I was encouraged to be curious: What were the conditions under which people produced and transported and served my food? What would be done with the food that wasn’t eaten?
Future
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I realize there are valid critiques of mindfulness practice, such as how it puts the burden of systemic inequity on individuals to “meditate” their way out of their complex living situations.
However, this year (as part of my WOTY commitment), I’m going to explore what I see as benefits of being more mindful in my own eating this year by incorporating more gratitude reflections. In addition to helping my health, mindful eating can be a reminder of—and an expression of gratitude for—the effort and sacrifice people make to grow, make, transport, prepare, and serve my food.
Eating mindfully requires privilege, but perhaps it is because of my privilege I must eat more mindfully. I hope this practice will help me to eat more in alignment with my values: not just how but also what and where I choose to eat. For instance, I think next time our family should plan an alternative vacation to an all-inclusive. The more I eat mindfully, the harder it becomes hard to ignore the waste and other unsustainable practices that may be persistent in such resorts.
I am not going to return to saying grace the way I used to as a child. But I hope that when I incorporate gratitude into mindful eating, it will lead me to think more about not just my own health but also the broader effects of my (often “mindless”) food consumption.
There’s not even much snow. It’s rain and freezing rain and slippy roads and sidewalks. I haven’t even been attempting the 23 minutes outside everyday in 2023 thing. (Cate has though.)
On the plus side, it’s light just a little bit later now.
I’m not a fan of the sort of visualization advice that is based in imagining the eventual results of your efforts. For starters, I find that focusing on results creates a lot of stress and frustration AND my brain likes to argue that it’s a waste of time to create an image of something that may have to change. (ADHD is quite stubborn like that.)
I *am* however, a fan of visualization that focuses on future actions, on the tasks I will undertake sometime soon. I find that very helpful and I think you might, too.
Note: If you happen to be one of those people who doesn’t have a ‘mind’s eye’, someone who can’t create a picture in their head, that’s totally fine. You don’t actually have to be able to picture this, you just have to be able to lay it out for yourself in words or ideas or text – whatever works for you.
So what’s the difference between results-based visualization and efforts-based visualization?
Results-based visualization relates to a future time when all the hard work is done and you are crossing a finish line, lifting the heavy weight, sitting in 30 minutes of meditation, handing in your thesis. In this kind of visualization you would imagine how you would feel, how you would celebrate, the entire situation in which you will find yourself when you’ve completed your task.
Effort-based visualization relates to a time in the very near future in which you will be working on your task, working towards your results. It involves things like imagining yourself getting up from your desk at lunch time, saying hi to your colleagues, putting on your coat and your boots, and heading out through the door of your office for a walk while you eat your sandwich. You can call your mental attention to the details your senses will experience – things you will see, hear, taste, smell, touch. You can imagine the sound of the door closing behind you, the smell of winter air, the hushed sound of snow…you get what I mean.
I’m sure lots of people enjoy the first type of visualization and find it useful but for me, the second type is far more helpful.
Doing a mental rehearsal not only makes me feel taking that future action is *possible*, it helps make it both tangible and probable. And it lets me imagine some likely obstacles in my path and to create ways around them.
As a storyteller, I know that our brains like to dive into stories and they mirror the character’s activities and emotions as if we were actually experiencing them ourselves. I can only assume that creating a vivid ‘story’ of our own future actions works the same way and perhaps it also helps us increase the feeling that we are capable of taking on these tasks, of doing these actions. Maybe it feels like something we have already done before or at least like we are the kind of person who *can* do these things.
Years ago, I read about a study in which the researchers had students who were going home for winter break with an academic task to complete work in two different ways. One group were just told to fit the task in whenever they could. The other group were encouraged to decide on a very specific time and place to complete the task and to create a very vivid image of themselves going to that place at that time and working on it (i.e. on Thursday right after the news, I will go to the kitchen table and write that paragraph.) Since I am bringing it up here, you already know that the second group had a greater number of people who were able to complete the task, and with more ease, than the first group. (I’m pressed for time at the moment but I’ll try to find this study and link it here a bit later.)
I find it helpful even for ordinary tasks – to imagine myself getting up from the table, putting away the clean dishes, and then heading upstairs to fold laundry. I don’t need such a vivid image for those kinds of tasks but even just imagining the tasks and the order I will do them in often helps me to get started and make them feel doable.?
I’m wondering if this approach might serve you well, too?
Could you try imagining yourself working on your plan/doing your exercises/sitting in meditation/drinking that next class of water/saying no to the task that won’t fit into your schedule?
Even if you can’t imagine an image of the scenario, could you create a list for yourself about what will happen and what you could do?
Could you find a way to mentally rehearse the actions you have decided to take?
Be sure to be as vivid and detailed as you possibly can without getting on your own nerves about it. 💚
And, of course, please be kind to yourself about the whole thing.
Even doing a mental rehearsal may take some practice.
Here are today’s gold stars – I’ve drawn a person hanging them up in a tree for you.
Notice that there are lots of stars in that basket on the ground so we can hang more stars as we celebrate your efforts over and over.
A small drawing of a person on a ladder hanging gold stars from the bare branches of the only tree in a field. The tree is on the far left of the drawing and the ladder is leaning against the trunk. The person is wearing a long green dress and their black hair is flowing down their back. They are standing near the top of the ladder and holding on to a branch with their left hand while they reach out to hang a star with their right. There are four other stars already hanging from the tree on strings and there is a blue basket on the ground with more gold stars piled in it.
I live in an area where cycling makes a lot of sense for everyday tasks. I can get to work, the grocery store, and most essential shops easily and safely by bicycle or on foot.
As gas prices rose this fall, I started a little personal challenge of not using my car more than once a week. I was already riding my bike to work on my days in the office, so this shouldn’t be a big additional burden, right?
I don’t know. My sample size is very small, and I didn’t set up a good research question in advance. My evidence is purely anecdotal.
I can tell you that I’m tired. Far more tired than I expected. But I’m still doing it, mostly. Even if it meant I needed a long nap after cycling to swim practice and to buy groceries on Saturday. I did get up on Sunday to bike to church.
Me in a green coat and blue bicycle helmet, with my bicycle. There is snow on the ground and a snowy hedge in th background. I appreciate that my church has bike racks. I also appreciate my black pogies, which are just the thing to keep my hands warm in winter.
A little bit of my tiredness is undoubtedly because being nervous about sharing the road with cars is exhausting. Even though I am getting more confident, I miss the separated lanes and bike paths that are available to me in summer.
And sidewalks often aren’t clear for pedestrians, so walking isn’t fun either. In fact, the closest I have come to an accident was when a pedestrian using the road jumped into my path to avoid being hit by a car.
If we really want people to adopt active living, which has huge benefits for overall health, accessibility and the environment, we need to push our civic leaders to invest in infrastructure that supports people to use non-car transportation year-round. And leaves them less tired and stressed from the effort.
Diane Harper is a public servant in Ottawa, and a recent convert to year-round cycling.
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:
This drawing didn’t really go as planned but it is a gold star and it does look happy about your victory today so I am accepting ‘done’ instead of seeking ‘perfect’ – I hope you can do the same with your efforts today. Image description: A drawing of a very shiny happy-faced gold star that appears to have its ‘arms’ in the air as it it is celebrating a victory. The background of the image is white with small blue and green shiny dots and a shiny green trim.
