Category: advice

two brown deer Is it bad being negatively motivated to exercise?
advice · fitness · health · motivation

Is it bad being negatively motivated to exercise?

elan.paulson6 Comments

The other day I was listening to American businessperson Carla Harris being interviewed on Adam Grant’s podcast about her successful career in the finance industry. My ears perked up when Harris described herself as “negatively motivated”:

but i am negatively motivated. you should know that about me. so when you tell me i can't do something, I'm all over it like a bad smell.

Harris suggests in the podcast that she took the underestimation of her as a black women in the white-male dominated finance industry as a challenge to overcome.

There are other, slightly different definitions of negative motivation, such as this one from Google:

Google defines negative motivation as behaviour that is motivated by anticipation or fear that an undesirable outcome will result from not performing. Fear is a powerful motivator, especially when that fear relates to your survival or, in the case of employees, their income and growth.

Negative motivation here is less about seeing adversity as a challenge and more about acting out of fear given the negative consequences of not acting. This definition aligns with how I often find myself motivated to exercise: not out of pleasure or reward but out of what I know will happen if I don’t exercise–namely stiffness, reduced flexibility, low mood, and inability to keep up with my friends.

Is it bad or wrong to be motivated by adversity, worries, or fears?

One fitness and wellness blog site suggests that positive motivation and reinforcement is more effective. The author uses an analogy of a gazelle being hunted by a cheetah to describe how “negative reinforcement works great temporarily, but falls short on long-term lifestyle changes” (p.18). Once the cheetah stops chasing the gazelle, the gazelle is no longer motivated to run at top speed.

However, positive reinforcements have been found to be effective only when they continue to be applied. According to one meta-analysis study, positive reinforcements improved exercise behaviours to a greater degree than negative reinforements, but once the positive reinforcements were removed there were mixed results in sustaining exercise behaviours.

Even if they are equally effective, I believe it is probably more difficult in the long to live among negative motivation and reinforcements all the time. A few years ago Kim Solga wrote about the underestimation of women cyclists. Even if female athletes are motivated to blow up gender assumptions and limiting stereotypes in their sport, Solga rightly points out that being on the receiving end of the negativity—the mansplaining, showing off, and the excessive complimenting—is exhausting!

Cheetah lying down. Photo by ray rui on Unsplash

I think I’d prefer not to be negatively motivated. I don’t want only hardship or fears to be what spurs me on. (And, of course, sex and race prejudice in sport needs to go away entirely.) Yet, when I’ve tried to be positive, set happy goals, and reward myself with bubble baths, they don’t always work.

Maybe it’s okay to be negatively motivated so long as I cut myself some slack occasionally, especially when I start to exhaust myself with all the worries. Some days, even the cheetahs and the gazelles hang around in the desert sunshine, watching each other but taking a break from the chase.

Christine takes advice from her past self
ADHD · advice · fitness · motivation · self care

Christine takes advice from her past self

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

I have been feeling a little frustrated with my six week fitness plan.

The first two weeks of 10 minutes a day was great and I was enjoying the second two weeks even though it was harder to fit in 20 minutes per day.

And then the side of my knee started hurting.

And then I got a cold.

And then I had a migraine.

And then my back got cranky with me.

Basically, things went awry as things tend to do.

And my two weeks of 20 minutes is going to be three or three and a half weeks of 20 minutes with some days off here and there.

It was annoying.

I wasn’t being hard on myself. I knew taking the days off was the right thing to do and I didn’t think poorly of myself because of it.

But I was ANNOYED.

And FRUSTRATED.

I wanted to stick with my plan. I wanted to be able to keep going. I wanted to stay on schedule.

I wanted it to be straightforward.

I had been doing so well adapting the exercises and being kind to myself and working really hard during each session.

And I was afraid I was going to get frustrated enough to lose momentum.

Then, this past weekend, Facebook offered up some advice from my 2016 self that helped me shake off both the annoyance and the frustration and tell myself a better story.

Here’s what past me wrote in a type of post I used to do before my Hey Team! advice:

Your challenge today is to take the easy way.

That sounds like bad advice, I know, but I find that I often take the hard way without thinking about it and I end up working way harder than I need to in order to reach the same place.

See the pics below? That’s the hill behind my kid’s school. I was all set to walk up that steeper, slippery slope when I realized that…

A photo of a steep hill mostly covered in ice and snow but with a few muddy/grassy patches.
Image description: a photo of a steep snow/ice covered hill with a few muddy/grassy patches. There are bare trees at the top and a building can be seen in the distance. It’s a sunny day with a cloudy blue sky.

ten feet to my left there was a much more gradual slope that would be much easier to walk up.

A photo of a gentle hill covered in ice and snow with a few muddy patches.
Image description: a photo of a gradually sloping snow/ice covered hill one route is much steeper than the other. There are evergreen trees and a cloudy blue sky at the top. Some red and blue poles from playground equipment are at the top left.

I still got where I was going, but the trip was much more pleasant.

Sure, taking a challenging route is good sometimes, if the challenge is the point but sometimes, you just need to be at the top of the hill.

So, take a look at the point of what you are doing today. Are you looking for a challenge, looking to test yourself, or is the point to get to the top of the hill so you can move on?

If you just need to get up there, then you have my official permission as a life coach, as someone’s Mom and as a kindness ambassador to just stroll up the easy way.

Or, to put it in storytelling terms, is this the story of how you climbed a hill and persevered or is the story about what came next? Choose your path accordingly.

May your easy path be clear today. 💚

And then that’s when I realized that this is NOT the story of how I did these specific workouts in this specific time frame.

This is the story of how I can feel better and be more focused by getting more exercise.

It’s the story of how I can be stronger.

It’s the story of how I can build and maintain sustainable fitness habits.

advice · fun · habits · health

Christine invites you to play along as Mindful March becomes Active April

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Were you following along with the Mindful March calendar from Action for Happiness?

I wrote about it last month and I did have a very mindful March, even though I didn’t do every activity on the calendar. I’m always happy to add more focused moments in my day so every activity I did was bonus.

If you didn’t hear about Mindful March until now, you can do the last two activities today and tomorrow. Today’s activity is “Mentally scan your body and see how it is feeling” and tomorrow, March 31, is “Discover the joy in the simple things in life.” That last one is a tall order for a single day but perhaps you can think of one simple thing you really enjoy and take a moment to do that.

For example, I really love when my tea mug is the perfect temperature for me to hold it in both hands and enjoy the warmth radiating from it. I’m going to take an extra moment or two to enjoy that feeling in the next couple of days.

a photo of a person's hand holding the white handle of a brown mug
Okay, so this isn’t a photo of me holding my mug in both hands but this image gives me the same kind of feeling. I love to sit on my front step in the sunshine and slowly drink a cup of tea – even looking at this photo feels good to me. This particular photo is from May 2019 and this is one of my favourite mugs. Image description: a photo of a small light brown mug with ‘Speak Your Kind’ in gold text on the front. My right fingers are wrapped around the white handle of the mug and my thumb is resting on the top. The mug and my fingers are in focus but in the background is a leafless tree, part of my lawn and driveway, and part of my street.

And, of course, you can always do the Mindful March activities at any time. It’s a good list of small ways to take a breather in your day.

And, of course, the daily tips from Action for Happiness switch up every month so, as Mindful March ends, we move right into Active April. If you click on the link in the previous sentence and scroll down to the bottom of the calendar, you have the option of downloading an ics file of the April calendar or viewing it on Google calendar – you can even add their calendar to your calendar list so you see the daily tips in your own calendar.

Here’s a copy of April’s calendar in case you want to do a little planning before Active April starts.

a multicoloured calendar of tips for being more active in April
Image description: A calendar for April 2023 from the Action for Happiness website that shows a different active tip for each day in April. The calendar squares are different shades of blue and green and around the edges of the calendar there are black and white cartoon drawings of people exercising and there is one drawing of a bunch of smiling fruits and vegetables.

advice · fitness · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2023! If all else fails, please, please, please be kind to yourself.

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Well, Team, like the title implies, the single most important thing I want you to have gotten out of these posts is the idea that being kind to yourself is the only way forward.

When you are building a habit you are trying to teach yourself something new. Perhaps you’re learning something entirely new or you are practicing a new way of behaving in a familiar situation. Either way, you are exploring new personal territory and that has a lot of inherent challenges build right in.

The only way to meet those challenges is to be kind to yourself about the process.

Think back to teachers you have had in the past.

Which ones really helped you learn?

Was it the cruel ones with the sharp tongue and the impossible standards?

Or was it the kind ones who showed you how to proceed, supported you as you went along, helped you to correct mistakes, and encouraged you to keep going?

Sure, the cruel one may have spurred you into working hard out of spite but your learning and growth was your own doing in that case. You developed discipline and worked hard *despite* them, not because of them.

The kind teacher may not have been your favourite at the time – their standards were probably high too. They were probably the one who kept after you when you slacked off, the one who knew what you were capable of even when you didn’t.

Kindness isn’t necessarily being ‘nice.’ It’s not about making things unnecessarily easy. It’s not about having no standards or no expectations.

The kind teacher knew when to push you and when to give you a break. The kind teacher had realistic expectations based on who you were and how you moved through the world. The kind teacher tried to be fair.

And that’s the sort of thing I am talking about when I remind you to be kind to yourself.

Today, being kind to yourself might involve resting from physical or emotional exertion.

Tomorrow, being kind to yourself might involve pushing yourself a little harder in your workout just to see if you can.

Being kinder to yourself isn’t based on what you ‘should’ want or what you ‘should’ be able to do.

It’s about meeting yourself where you are today and making the choice that will serve you best now and in the long run.

Being kind to yourself is about being self-compassionate, about recognizing that your needs are important – even when they change from day to day- and about supporting yourself as you expand your comfort zone to encompass new things and improve your sense of well-being.

Being kind to yourself is a key element in making those types of lasting change.

After all, like those memes say – if being mean to ourselves worked, we all would be perfect by now.

So, Team, even if self-kindness is still a work-in-progress for you, please keep working at it.

You are worth that effort.

And speaking of effort, here is your final gold star for this January series.

Congratulations on your efforts this month, please be kind to yourself as we roll into February.

Have fun out there!

💚⭐️💚⭐️💚

A drawing of a 4-pointed gold star (made of three similarly-sized points and a long point at the bottom) surrounded by smaller stars in the same shape made from thin gold lines.
A drawing of a 4-pointed gold star (made of three similarly-sized points and a long point at the bottom) surrounded by smaller stars in the same shape made from thin gold lines. The large star is essentially 8 gold triangles with black outlines arranged into a long-tailed star shape, the smaller ones are like asterisks with a longer line on the vertical axis. The background is blue and the entire image is framed with a darker blue line.
advice · goals · habits · self care

Go Team 2023! Focus on your efforts

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

This is my second-last post for this January series so I am continuing with my plan to reiterate the messages I hope I stressed throughout the month. Yesterday, I reminded you to check your systems. Today, I’m reminding you to focus on your efforts instead of your results.

Yes, I know it is really fun to notice and celebrate results. I’m definitely not arguing otherwise. However, results take time, they are not always within your control, and results happen after a series of efforts. If you only focus on results, you can end up frustrated and annoyed -especially if you realize that the result you originally sought isn’t the same as the one you want to seek now.

Soooooo, if you focus on your efforts instead, you can enjoy more regular feelings of competence and accomplishment. You can check something important off your list every single time you are working towards your goal or moving forward with your habit.

This doesn’t mean that you need to put in a Herculean effort every time.

It means that all of your efforts count.

The day that you do a single squat or a minute of meditation? That counts!

The day that you do an hour long dance workout or sit in meditation for hours? That counts too!

Focusing on your efforts makes everything part of the big picture (your habit/goal/practice) and of the biggest picture (your well-being.)

I’m not saying that you’ll never be frustrated or disappointed – those things are just part of life (and of habit-building)- but focusing on your efforts can help you have a realistic perspective on things.

And when you notice the efforts that you regularly have time and energy for, you’ll have more reasonable expectations for your eventual results.*

So, Team, as you move forward with your habit-building practice, please consider keeping the focus on your efforts instead of just on your results.

Caveat: If you are the type of person who is completely fueled and energized by the idea of your future results and you can easily shake off disappointment and frustration about day-to-day activities, please just carry on doing what you are doing. Different brains enjoy different approaches and I just want everyone to have the freedom to work in a way that makes sense to them.

Here’s your gold star for today’s efforts, whether you focus is just on the work of today or if you also have one eye on that distant prize. Please be kind to yourself, either way.

A drawing of a shiny gold star surrounded by small dots.
A drawing of a shiny gold star surrounded by small dots. The dots are green, blue, red, and pink.

*To use a non-fitness example, if I want to write a novel I can focus on that end result – a finished first draft. Compared to my imagined future manuscript, 5 minutes of daily writing will seem paltry and it will feel like a very long time before I can celebrate an accomplishment. However, if I focus on my efforts – building a regular writing habit that will eventually lead to a manuscript- I can enjoy the process more, I can celebrate more often, and I can see every writing session as part of the bigger project. AND, because my focus on my efforts will show me just how much I can get done in a day, a week, a month, I won’t be creating the unreasonable (and definitely disappointing) idea of finishing my novel in a very short period of time.

advice · fitness · goals · habits · self care

Go Team 2023! Systems Check

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I only have three more posts in this January series so I wanted to reiterate three important things for you to carry with you as you forge ahead with your habit-building.

First up: a systems check!

Whether you are cruising happily along with your habit building, you are finding each day a struggle, or you are somewhere in between, it’s a good idea to check your systems from time to time.

Note: Doing a systems check is especially important if you are struggling. In my experience, people who are struggling with habit-building are awfully quick to attribute their struggles to some ‘flaw’ they perceive in themselves.

I don’t want that to happen to anyone but I especially don’t want that for you, dear Team members. Instead of defaulting to self-blame, please get curious about your systems instead.

Do you have systems in place to support the plans that you have made and the tasks you need to do to bring those plans to fruition?

If you haven’t consciously chosen a system for adding this habit to your life, you are probably unconsciously defaulting to a system you have used for something else. And a system designed (consciously or unconsciously) for a different project is unlikely to support you in building your current habit and will probably cause you a lot of frustration as you go along.

Your system doesn’t have to be complex or elaborate, it can be a straightforward as selecting a time and a place when you can be reasonably certain that you can do your habit-building tasks on a regular basis.

For example: If you are trying to build a habit of daily meditation, your system could involve choosing to meditate first thing in the morning because you get up before everyone else and you are rarely interrupted. It could also involve things like l putting a blanket in your meditation location every night, setting your coffee pot timer a little later so your coffee is ready when your meditation is done instead of when you first get up, or requesting support from your partner or roommates to take care of anything that arises during your meditation session.

Are your systems doing what you need them to do?

Maybe you have systems in place but they are designed for an ideal day rather than your regular life.

Perhaps the system elements you thought you needed at the beginning don’t actually meet your needs.

Or maybe you the system you created was perfect at the beginning but you quickly outgrew it.

It’s possible that the system you created is more complex than you realized and it’s too hard to follow. (This happens to me a fair bit. I often don’t realize how many steps I have put in place until I try to follow them on a regular basis. Then I end up trying to meet the requirements of the system instead of the system serving me.)

It’s ok to adjust a system that isn’t working.

Taking time, even mid-project, to assess how your systems are working is probably time well-spent.

Identifying the friction in your system now will help you reduce frustration overall and help you refine your habit-building process more quickly. Reducing that friction will let you spend more time on your habit-related tasks and less time fighting with yourself and your own system.

What do you need to add or remove to get your system working for you?

This is not the time to be hard on yourself about what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ need.

If you think of something to add to or remove from your system that will help you move forward with your habit building, please do what you need to do.

If you find it easier to exercise with a ribbon tied around your left wrist, tie a ribbon around your left wrist. And have a system for keeping track of the ribbon and one for cleaning it when it gets grubby.

You don’t have to get precious about the ribbon – you know you *can* exercise without it, it’s just feels better when you do – but you also don’t have to atop using it just to prove a point.

Go ahead and adjust your system until it meets your needs.

After all, supporting you is the whole point of the system – it might as well do a thorough job.

All Systems Go

So, Team, as you move forward with your habit-building practices and tasks, please do the occasional systems check.

You will always be doing the best you can do with resources you have in a given moment.

There’s no need to let a mismatched system cause you any stress or, worse, to cause you to doubt yourself.

With the right system, and the right match between your expectations and your efforts, you can build the habit you want to build.

And, speaking of efforts, here’s a gold star for your efforts today – whatever those efforts might entail.

Be kind to yourself out there.

Pretty please.

A large gold star outlined in green against a shaded green background decorated with closed yellow spirals and green dots.
A drawing of a large gold star outlined in green against a shaded green background decorated with closed yellow spirals and green dots.
advice · fitness · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2023! When you just don’t wanna

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Team, let’s be clear about something…

When you are undertaking a long term project, especially one where it may take a while to see your progress, you are going to have days when you just don’t wanna do the thing.

You probably have time and capacity to do it but you just feel so meh about it that you can’t be bothered.

For starters, this is a normal part of the process of making change and trying to complete a long project, so please don’t automatically take this feeling as a sign that the project isn’t for you. Also, please don’t take it as a sign that you aren’t up for the challenge.

And, while you’re at it, don’t assume that your temporary lack of enthusiasm is permanent. You don’t have to feel excited about your tasks or projects every day. Most of us have a mix of enthusiasm, boredom, determination, apathy, and focus over the course of any project.

So, now that you have cleared the worry that today’s lack of enthusiasm is an omen, what can you do about the fact that you just don’t wanna do the thing?

1) You can decide not to do the thing today

It’s true! There’s probably no one forcing you to do the thing and, in the big picture, this one day probably will not make or break your plans.

Maybe you need a rest. Maybe you need to feel like you are ‘breaking’ the rules today, like you are getting away with something.

Maybe you just need to assert your authority over your schedule to remind yourself that this stuff is your choice and that these tasks are supposed to serve you, not the other way around.

No matter what your reason or your need, you do indeed have the power to say ‘Nah!’ today.

2) You can do the thing anyway

It’s a bizarre truth that you don’t actually need to be enthusiastic in order to get something done. In fact, you can be completely apathetic and do something in the most rote and routine way and it can still get done.

It might be a little harder to get started but you can decide to just forge ahead with the damn thing and get it over with.

It might not be the best iteration of the task, it might not be fun, but it will be done.

Like saying goes ‘Done beats perfect every time.’

3) You can change the thing you have to do

Maybe you don’t actually feel meh about your project overall, maybe just feel meh about today’s task.

Maybe the walk that seemed like a good plan when you made your list now feels like the worst idea ever.

Maybe when your hopeful Monday scheduled a 10 minute meditation today, they imagined a much more relaxed week. However, the you of today, the one who has been through the tasks of the week, can’t face the idea of sitting for 10 minutes right now.

The you of today can override the you of the past.

Past you was planning based on ideas, present you is working with information.

Present you can use that information to make a different plan.

Present you can decide to dance or bike or swim instead of going for a walk.

The you of today can choose to do some meditative movement or to colour or draw or fold laundry or sort legos – anything that gives *you* that same sort of focused calm.

(Laundry or sorting doesn’t do that for me, personally, but lots of my clients have reported that tasks like that feel mindful and helpful. You do what works for you.)

Like I said in the section above, enthusiasm isn’t required to complete a task. However, if you lack enthusiasm about your planned task but a different task that serves the same purpose *is* appealing, then go ahead and do the other task.

You don’t have to stick with the original plan that past you made. Present you knows more about your situation than past you did.

Keep aiming for self-kindness

Obviously, your ideal situation is to keep working steadily toward developing the habit you want to develop.

However, working steadily does not have to mean working constantly on a rigid plan.

Instead, using a self-kindness lens, you can interpret ‘working steadily’ to mean giving yourself what you need each day to move toward your habit.

On any given day, the kindest choice might be to take a break, it might be to change the task, or it might be to forge ahead anyway, despite a lack of enthusiasm.

Only you can decide which is the kindest one for your present self.

I wish you ease and I offer you this gold star for your efforts – your efforts toward your habit, your efforts to change your plans, your efforts to rest, and, as always, for your efforts to be kind to yourself either way.

Your efforts matter. 💚

A drawing of a gold star against a patterned background.​
A drawing of a gold star against a patterned background that slants upward from left to right. The background is composed of three sections. The top one is made of intersecting tile-shapes that contain slanted rectangles that alternate between black and white. The intersecting point of each set of four tiles is overlaid with a circle. The middle section of the background is a series of small squares, some of which have a smaller square in the centre while others contain dots at the top and slanted lines at the bottom. The bottom section has light black lines overlaid with three objects drawn on top. The objects are long sticks with smaller sticks laid across them. The smaller sticks have small back squares on the ends of each one. In the centre of each long stick is a square or rectangle framing a smaller object of the same shape.
ADHD · advice · fitness · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2023! Choose for your own peace of mind

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Today is a bit of an off day for me.

I had a few complicated things to do and I’m not feeling particularly well and I just kind of want to climb under a blanket and take a nap.

I had a reasonable amount of things on my to do list today but now it is mid-afternoon and I can take things in two possible directions.

1) I can forge ahead with my to do list as-is and just hope for the best.

2) I can get strategic and decide which tasks to work on and how much time/energy I am going to put into them.

Perhaps you’ve had success with option 1 but almost every time I’ve tried it I have ended up feel frustrated and dissatisfied and VERY conscious of the tasks left undone.

And I have usually had to spend a fair bit of time coaxing myself out of feeling badly about the whole thing.

However, anytime I have paused and made a conscious choice about which tasks to work on and how long to spend on them, I have more peace of mind right from the start.

My tasks feel more accessible, more possible. My efforts make sense to me, they feel more direct. I end up being able to focus on what I *can* do with the resources I have instead of having an constant low-key dread that I won’t get stuff done.

What does this have to do with your habit-building tasks?

Well, I have found that I feel much the same when the tasks ahead of me are related to my habits as when they are related to my work.

If I am holding those tasks in my head on an off-kilter/busy day with the idea that I will get to them ‘as soon as possible’ and that I will do them completely as planned, I end up feeling stressed about them. They take up way more room in my head than they need to and I end up feeling like I am falling short.

BUT

If my day is going a bit sideways and I stop to make a choice about what I will or will not do, I feel better about the whole thing.

Instead of going into overdrive, mentally and physically, and wearing myself down, I focus and choose my next steps.

And making those choices gives me peace of mind.

I’m no longer fitting in a 20 minute walk ‘if I can’ – I’m choosing to take a 10 minute walk because I am certain I have time for that.

I’m no longer ‘hoping to meditate before bed’, I’m choosing to stop anything else I’m doing at 10pm so I have time to meditate.

Or, I’m no longer planning to row ‘when I finish everything else’ (a phrase that could extend my day far more than I want to), I’m choosing not to row at all today because I had to shift my priorities or because I don’t feel well.

Alternatively, I may be choosing to row or walk or meditate for a longer period of time or in a more challenging way and choosing *not* to do something else.

So, Team, based on this extended example from how my brain works, how do you feel about choosing the parameters for your habit-building tasks today?

Will making a conscious choice bring you peace of mind?

Or are you just as happy to carry on with your to do list and see what happens?

Please choose whichever feels kindest to you.

And here’s a gold star for your efforts today, no matter how many choices are involved.

*Nothing serious just some minor symptoms related to having a tooth pulled a few days ago.

PS – I know that some of these thought patterns have ADHD-related origins, at least in my brain, but I understand that at least some neurotypical people also think this way sometimes. Either way, I think making conscious choices on a hard day is good for your brain and helps you feel more in charge of things.

A drawing of a shiny gold star against a background of green spirals and green dots.​
A drawing of a shiny gold star against a background of green spirals and green dots.
advice · fitness · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2023! Err on the side of self-kindness

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Sorry for the spoiler in the title, Team, but I always want you to be kind to yourself, no matter what.

I think that one of the biggest obstacles in developing new habits is how hard we can be on ourselves about the challenges involved.

We’re trying to layer a new habit into an already busy life.

We’re trying to rewire our brain to make a different choice.

We’re working to change an ingrained system.

Over time, our brains and our bodies have acclimatized to one thing (for better or for worse) and we are trying to coax them into doing something different.

That takes effort.

Conscious, repeated effort.

This requires experimentation. There will be successes. There will be missteps. There will be adjustments. There will be changes.

The whole initial idea may have to be revamped if those experiments and adjustments provide new information.

This things (and all kinds of others) are all very normal parts of the process of building a new habit, of making change.

So, when you bump up against any of these things and falls into ‘blame yourself’ mode, you don’t do yourself any favours. In fact, it just makes things even harder.

So, please, don’t add that obstacle.

Aim for self-kindness.

When a mistake is make, when something needs to be changed, when you are struggling, try to view yourself through the most compassionate lens possible.

Instead of defaulting framing things in terms of fault and failure, try to to see yourself as a normal human being doing normal human things. A normal human being who needs support, structure, and systems to build a new habit.

Whenever possible, err on the side of self-kindness.

I know that self-kindness may not be easy.

In fact, it is a whole separate habit to build.

But, it is definitely worth putting into practice, even if you are just experimenting with it at first.

Even if you don’t *fully* believe it, even if you have doubts, even if you worry that you are letting yourself away with something, it’s worth giving self-kindness a try.

And if you can’t stir up kindness for yourself, imagine that I am talking to you about the situation at hand. Imagine what I would say to you in the situation (hint: it’s going to be kind and it will not involve blame.)

Self-kindness is never going to be a bad choice.

Your gold stars for today’s efforts in self-kindness, habit-building, or planning are in a basket below. Take as many as you like – you’re doing an awful lot of work here!

Wishing you ease and self-compassion today and always, Team.

Drawing of a shallow basket of gold stars, sitting on a table
Image description: A drawing of a shallow basket filled with gold stars of various sizes sitting on a table. The table and basket are drawing in black ink with a woven pattern on the basket and lines like wood grain on the table, the stars are painted gold.

advice · fitness · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2023! Check in with yourself

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

So, Team, back on January 10, I was inviting you to figure out what knowledge, experience, and information you had gathered about yourself and your new habit/plan at that point.

That wasn’t just about noticing (although noticing is good, too), it was about assessing how well your plans and systems were developing and making the choice to continue as you were or to adjust as needed.

Today, after 24 days of practice, I‘m inviting you to check in with yourself about the same overarching sorts of things.

Are your systems supporting your plans?

Are you mostly able to do your habit-building tasks when and how you plan to do them?

Do you find yourself happy/content to do those tasks? Or do you feel neutral about them? Or do you dread them?

Does your goal still make sense to you? Do you still care about it?

Have any of your priorities changed?

Do you know anything now that you didn’t know on the 10th or on the 1st that affects how you want to proceed?

Have you gathered any information about yourself, your systems, your approach or about anything else that will be useful for you in other contexts/for other projects?

Maybe you’ll ask yourself these questions, or questions like these, and conclude that everything is going grand.

Maybe you’ll ask yourself these questions, or questions like these, and discover that you want to change things up.

Maybe these questions will reveal things that you can save to apply elsewhere.

Either way, it’s worth taking a few minutes to check in with yourself about this stuff. Otherwise, it’s too easy to end up plodding along with something just because we ‘might as well finish what we started.’

As you can probably tell, I vote no on that.

I want better things for you.

I want you to have plans and goals that serve you well and I want you to have the systems and support you need to follow through on those plans.

Even if those plans, goals, systems, and needed supports change over time.

I’m wishing you ease and self-kindness as you consider these questions today (or whenever!)

Here’s your gold star for your efforts to reflect, to move forward, to make plans, or to get enough rest today.

Go Team!

A drawing of a happy-faced gold star on a swing
A drawing of a cartoonish gold star (with bright blue eyes and a big grin) sitting on a swing and holding on to the strings of the swing with her two side points. The swing is black and the background is blue with purple dots. There’s a thick dark purple line at the bottom of the image.