Habits review: December 2019
I came across a thought that I really liked, which says that you never finish working on a habit. There’s no magical period after which you no longer have to try. Habits are things that you do regularly. If you stop doing them they are no longer going to be habits. With that in mind, let’s review how well I’m doing for my current habits.
Habits under active development
- 📝 Regular writing
- 🏋🏻 Conditioning sessions
- 🧘🏻♂️ Meditation
- 📖 Reading
📝 Regular writing
I feel like I’m in a good place with my writing habit since I came up with a list of categories to write in. At the same time, it also feels a bit strange as right now I’m writing about a set number of things leaving little place for creativity. I’m not sure when is the best time to write about random things that I fancy writing about. At the same time, I actually feel less pressured as I always know what I need to write about and the next thing that’s coming up. I may just need to create categories for “random things”. Will think about it this month.
I have been regularly writing on the train for 3 months now, which means that I have spent at least 24 hours doing it! That’s a lot of time straight up writing. I think I may need to start building a habit of writing when I’m not travelling though. I need to continue writing on holidays or other periods when I don’t necessarily travel to work that much. Given that it’s best to stack your habits I will probably start writing after my conditioning and stretching sessions on mornings when I don’t travel to work.
🏋🏻 Conditioning sessions
I haven’t skipped a single training session in the past 2 months (I had to move things around in a week though), which I’m very happy about. My headstand technique (in preparation for handstands) has gotten much better and I feel confident standing on my head for a minute (and possibly more). I also feel that my abs improved a lot as it became much easier during my stretching sessions where they are involved. I’m also pushing the difficulty on the ab conditioning sessions.
All of the above is great, but I think that my progress has slowed down a bit. I read somewhere that it’s good to take a longer break after every 8-12 weeks to give the body some time to recuperate and that is exactly what I’m planning to do next week. After that I will come back to my regular routine.
🧘🏻♂️ Meditation
I also haven’t missed a single day of meditation! During the 2 months of meditating daily there’s a noticeable improvement in my self-compassion, but tough days didn’t completely go away (nor did I expect them to). I’m not sure if I noticed much improvement in my ability to focus or be happier, but I feel like there’s a high bar for these already. Ideally these skill will improve over time. I like the process of meditation itself as well so I will continue with this experiment. I will also think about a better way to form a habit of conducting these short mindfulness exercises throughout the day whenever I do not feel focused or happy.
📖 Reading
This was a tougher one. I missed a lot of days and have gone back to watching TV shows multiple times. That happened due to multitude of reasons, but the prevailent 2 were:
- I didn’t have the energy to read for 30 minutes. I reckon that if I only set a target of reading for 10 minutes it would be easier to start and I could improve over time, so I will do that.
- I didn’t have a book to hand that I could read. For this I actually need to line up a list of good books I would like to read, which is easier said than done. However, I will start by going through the list in atomichabits.com and getting what I like from there.
I’m confident that I can improve upon this habit in December.
Mastered habits
- 🙆🏻♂️ Morning stretch sessions 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).
🙆🏻♂️ Morning stretch sessions
This habit feels easy - I don’t need to spend much mental energy doing it, though the intensity has dropped for the same reasons as conditioning sessions. I’m happy about it.
Habits wishlist
This month I will probably introduce a habit around quality time with my kids. My wife sent me a good article about spending one to one time with your kids and how it can help them feel more confident and appreciated. I do try to spend a fair bit of time with them, but we have never tried doing it with one kid at a time.