How to stick to your plans Part 3

Here is part 3! Click here to see the previous parts in this series. Have you tried any of the previous tips? What works for you?

Here are some more tips. The fourth and last installment will follow in about 2 weeks.

Look ahead

You don't have control over your past failures or successes anymore. If your goal is to improve in the future, the only question is what you do next. So whether you ate healthily or badly at lunch doesn't really matter anymore. What matters is whether you are going to snack before dinner and what you have at dinner. So forget your successes and failures and focus ALL your energy on what you do next.

Think about what works

Einstein once said that "Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." By this definition we are often insane when we try and establish good habits. We tell ourselves that we should simply 'try harder'then do the same things as the previous time we tried to change our behaviour. The alternative is to learn what works and to adapt your efforts accordingly.

Some things work in establishing routines and disciplines. Others don't. And this is all highly personal. All of us have discovered that brute will power only gets you so far. So if we are to succeed, we need to think about what helps us to establish disciplines and what breaks them down.

For example, I have tried all sorts of plans to get to my ideal bicycle racing weight  -with varying success. I have now decided to cut bread out of my diet. I will watch the results of this carefully at the scales over the next two weeks. I don't know if this will work, but that is exactly the point - at the end of this experiment I will know if it works.

Reflect on your experiments. Document them. Collect as much information as you can. When do you lapse on your diets? I find that dinner and after dinner poses a particular risk to my eating reforms. My cycling comebacks are at risk when significant non cycling events happen in my life. Spare no efforts in learning about what leads to success or failure.

Approaching this as an experiment also has the fringe benefit of keeping you interested. The focus is away from your willpower and whether you are 'strong' enough to stick with it. Instead the focus is on the experiment and its results. Even if I don't lose weight from this scheme, I am still interested in the results of the experiment. The success/failure model is taken out of the equation.

Reward yourself

I have had a bit of resistance to meditation and retreats for the last while. This last weekend's retreat was particularly hard. But I lasted for the whole thing from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. When I got back home my wife congratulated me with sticking it out. This reminded me to reinforce positive behaviour. Even it is just a mental pat on the back.

I tend to make huge efforts and simply move on when they have been completed. This approach turns life into a list of chores to knock off and ordeals to get through. The alternative is to reward your good behaviour. For one thing it is more fun than punishing your failures.

How to stick to your plans Part 2

How to stick to your Plans Part 1 gave some tips on how to keep doing the things that we know we are supposed to do. Those good habits that keep on sneaking away from us like a rainbow. This post has three more ideas for how to stop feeling guilty about not doing these things and to start doing them.

Don't change with the times

Whenever a new fashion or fad comes along we are tempted to drop what we are doing and to run off to Tae Bo, Pilates, Alpha Mind Power or whatever the new thing is. Resist the temptation. Remind yourself that you will fall in and out of love with the new thing as well. Stick with your first love. Reap the benefits of sticking with the same thing for a long time. 'Be there' when you have been meditating or running for 20 years. If nothing else, this will give you bragging rights. Check the running streak guys out for some inspiration.

Establish routines

It only takes 21 days to establish a habit. Imagine if your other good habits could become as ingrained as brushing teeth or eating with a knife and fork. No agonizing, no big efforts and committments. Just doing what needs doing.

And this is entirely possible. Why shouldn't meditating twice a day or drinking 5 glasses of water a day become as 'second-nature' as having a shower in the morning? The only difference that I can see is habit.

So here's a challenge: stick to whatever good behaviour you are trying to establish for 21 consecutive days. And maybe try the other things that help establish habits: Do it at the same time every day, Do it in the same place if you can, Maybe even wear the same clothes - anything that can help you train yourself to turn to this task routinely.

Hang out with likeminded people

The main reason why I have kept on cycling more or less continuously for the last 25 years is that I have good friends and family that ride. Seeing these people and hearing their cycling stories (again and again :-) has inspired me to keep going or to make a bigger effort. There is always somebody ready to go for a ride or talk about riding. All that I have to do is to keep on hanging out with these people.




Look out for part 3 in this series in 10 days or so!

How to stick to your plans Part 1

All of us have things that we know we are supposed to do, but that we somehow neglect to do. Drinking enough water, getting enough exercise and sleep, or eating healthily. We learn about things like this from a class, a friend or a good book. And it is as if we fall in love. We start doing exercise or meditating and we love it and the way that it makes us feel.

This lasts for some time and then slowly the initial thrill wears off. We still know that this thing is good for us and that we should do it. We even feel good when we do get around to it. But by and large the fervor is gone. And it seems to become a constant battle to not neglect doing it.

In many cases we just give up, but the guilt and knowledge of what we should be doing never goes away. So what to do if you don't want to play the guilt and shame game? Here are some of the remedies that I have experimented with.

Confess!

I have often been re inspired by simply talking my slackness through with someone else. Someone that you respect works best. But a good friend with similar interests will also work. I sometimes just get too wrapped up in my own problems and dramas. Simply 'putting it out there' is often enough to burn off the smog.

Just do a little

Cyclist Greg Lemond used to tell himself that he would just train for 20 minutes and would give himself permission to turn around if after that time he still did not feel like training. Invariably after 20 minutes he would be having fun and complete a full training session.

I have had some success with the same approach with writing, meditation and healthy eating (tell yourself that you will have some of the healthy stuff first). With a bit of luck you discover that the hardest part is to get yourself to start.

Remind yourself why

Many times we simply forget why we embarked on this discipline in the first place. Take some quiet time and ask yourself why you started running or reading good books in the first place. Chances are that you will remember that you really love it or that it makes you the kind of person you want to be.

In Haruki Murakami's "What I talk about when I talk about running" he writes beautifully about how daily running is woven into his life and career. If you can rediscover your personal connection with a discipline, chances are that you will stick to it.

I will post some more tips over the next few weeks. But in the meantime, tell us what else has worked for you?

Discover yourself in Boredom

Sometimes the best thing that you can do is nothing at all. Yet most of us dread being at a loose end: That space after the completion of a big project or the end of a relationship or just being stuck in traffic or  when there isn't anything good on television.

When we get to the point where we don't have anything pressing to do or we are waiting for someone else, we make a phone call, send a text message, check email or generally fidget around with whatever we can lay our hands on. As Carol Johnson says in her recent article The Joy of Boredom :

"Increasingly, these empty moments are being saturated with productivity, communication, and the digital distractions offered by an ever-expanding array of slick mobile devices."

 

The Fear of Boredom and Loneliness

Johnson also points out that the fear of boredom is linked to fear of loneliness and isolation:

"Today, there is a growing fear of the prospect of being untethered in the world without the security blanket of a cellphone. There is this hyper-anxiety over feeling lonely or disconnected," said Kathleen Cumiskey, a professor of psychology a…who says her stepdaughter sleeps with her cellphone at arm's length and considers turning the device off unthinkable. "Our society is perpetually anxious, and a way to alleviate the anxiety is to delve into something that's very within our control, pleasurable, and fun. . . .It feels like it has all the makings of addiction."

This is luckily not the only way of thinking about boredom and loneliness.

The value of Boredom and Loneliness

As Friedrich Nietzsche tells us: "If you stare into the Abyss long enough, the Abyss stares back at you." Or in the famous Zen story  Nan-in tells the Professor that he can't teach him Zen because his mind is too full; that he needs to empty it out before  anything new will go into it.

When we let ourselves experience loneliness and boredom, we come closer to the space from which creativity and contentment emerge. It is out of the disorientation of isolation that new ideas and peace of mind are often born. As Johnson says:

"The most creative people… are known to have the greatest toleration for long periods of uncertainty and boredom… steeping inuninterrupted boredom may be the first step toward feeling connected. It may take a little bit of tolerance of an initial feeling of boredom, to discover a comfort level with not being linked in and engaged and stimulated every second," said Jerome C. Wakefield, a professor of social work at New York University and co-author of "The Loss of Sadness."
"There's a level of knowing yourself, of coming back to baseline, and knowing who you truly are."
'If you think of boredom as the prelude to creativity, and loneliness as the prelude to engagement of the imagination, then they are good things,' said Dr. Edward Hallowell… 'They are doorways to something better, as opposed to something to be abhorred and eradicated immediately.'

In the end the words 'boredom' and 'loneliness' are just negative ways of looking at fundamental parts of human experience.

How to be bored

The trick to benefitting from being bored or lonely is simply to allow it. When you find yourself being bored or lonely or even just scared of being bored and lonely - don't resist it. Just let yourself experience it.

Another way of discovering the gifts of boredom and loneliness is to spend some time doing nothing at all on purpose. Simply set an alarm to mark the time, go and sit on the couch and do nothing at all. No cell phones, no company, no books, no television, nothing.

You could start with as little as 2-3 minutes and stretch it to longer periods as you become more comfortable with it. But be warned, 3 minutes of nothing can feel like an eternity.

Even more importantly, you will start noticing what is going on in your mind and body. And that is where the fun starts! Let me know what you find.

Supple Body, Supple Mind

Stretching is a free pleasure that you should avail yourself of. Not all spiritual work is physical. Sometimes working on the body goes directly to the source of the problem.

Apart from being fun, a supple body works better, recovers better and can do more things.Twenty years of yoga and stretching has also convinced me that suppleness of the body translates to suppleness of mind. When I stretch regularly I become more resilient and accommodating in general.

Stretching also combines well with almost any other form of exercise. Want to run or cycle faster? Want to chase better in tennis or squash? And to relax  after a long day of work? Stretching is the answer.

So where to start?

• Easy does it.
• Regularity does it. Start with a few minutes every second day.
  
• Its is best to start under the supervision of an instructor. A beginners yoga class is a good entry point.
• When it hurts, back off.
• Hamstrings and quads are the most important. The dogstretch does your hammies well. Youtube shows you how. Your quads are done like this.
• Stretching is about relaxing, not competing.
• If you have only a few minutes a day, learn the Salute to the Sun. Learn how on youtube.
• When you are starting off, make sure you keep yourself hydrated. Dehydration stiffens you up further.
• If backpain is your problem, try the Cat stretch (See it in Youtube)