Thanks Curt! Just what I needed to read this morning. I’ve been toying with the idea of attaching a book stand to my exercise bike so that I can get through my ridiculous pile of unread books AND increase movement. You’ve motivated me to actually do it today. ❤️🙏🏽
I realize now that, maybe without planning it so carefully, I actually employed the same basic technique with my writing. After years of procrastination and frustration and super-ego attacks, I set myself the goal "I'm going to sit down every morning and write at least one sentence."
The first sentence is always the hardest.
That quickly became a habit, and I finished several novels in that way. It works!
Reading your post I'm noticing the value of making the goal es explicit and clear as possible. Great advice, Curt! :)
I also have, but don't practice, personal trainer's education and have played with the idea of building a service/app for those frustrated with "I always have a good start and then drop out (gym, group exercise, etc)". It has a working name "Sisyphus Gym" and the bottom line is that no matter what, there are no eternal exercise projects. Quitting is as normal as starting again. And exactly like you say, finding the Kaizen, is the key. I have rolled my stone uphill several times and most of them during these middle age years have followed the idea of start so low and add so little that you don't even notice: walking 10 min on a treadmill and adding one minute per day, doing a single asana of the Astanga primary series and adding one per week, a single pull up and adding one per week. Starting low makes it easy and adding just a little makes it a journey. And who cares if the goals change. On the contrary, new things are fun.
Having just started on my eighth decade on this planet I have a suggestion that I find very helpful for prioritizing habits I want to add or delete:
By any means that works for you (ie: meditating on this or discussing with others) build a decision tree of your top priorities. A decision tree means that at the top of the "tree" are the factors that are critical to enable any and all of the subsequent important factors you will list as priorities. Without factor one you cannot effectively accomplish factor two. Without factor one and/or two you cannot effectively accomplish number three, etc.
Focus your habits to first ensure the top few factors and build from there.
In my case my number one is health and number two is sufficient income to give me the degrees of freedom I would like in order to accomplish number one and as many other priorities as reasonably possible without compromising number one.
I think that such "broadcasting into the void" is not just an act of revealing oneself to the world, but rather an act of becoming.
Keep going, you work is much appreciated ;)
Thanks Curt! Just what I needed to read this morning. I’ve been toying with the idea of attaching a book stand to my exercise bike so that I can get through my ridiculous pile of unread books AND increase movement. You’ve motivated me to actually do it today. ❤️🙏🏽
I'm so glad Alexandra!
That's really helpful, Curt!
I realize now that, maybe without planning it so carefully, I actually employed the same basic technique with my writing. After years of procrastination and frustration and super-ego attacks, I set myself the goal "I'm going to sit down every morning and write at least one sentence."
The first sentence is always the hardest.
That quickly became a habit, and I finished several novels in that way. It works!
Reading your post I'm noticing the value of making the goal es explicit and clear as possible. Great advice, Curt! :)
I also have, but don't practice, personal trainer's education and have played with the idea of building a service/app for those frustrated with "I always have a good start and then drop out (gym, group exercise, etc)". It has a working name "Sisyphus Gym" and the bottom line is that no matter what, there are no eternal exercise projects. Quitting is as normal as starting again. And exactly like you say, finding the Kaizen, is the key. I have rolled my stone uphill several times and most of them during these middle age years have followed the idea of start so low and add so little that you don't even notice: walking 10 min on a treadmill and adding one minute per day, doing a single asana of the Astanga primary series and adding one per week, a single pull up and adding one per week. Starting low makes it easy and adding just a little makes it a journey. And who cares if the goals change. On the contrary, new things are fun.
Having just started on my eighth decade on this planet I have a suggestion that I find very helpful for prioritizing habits I want to add or delete:
By any means that works for you (ie: meditating on this or discussing with others) build a decision tree of your top priorities. A decision tree means that at the top of the "tree" are the factors that are critical to enable any and all of the subsequent important factors you will list as priorities. Without factor one you cannot effectively accomplish factor two. Without factor one and/or two you cannot effectively accomplish number three, etc.
Focus your habits to first ensure the top few factors and build from there.
In my case my number one is health and number two is sufficient income to give me the degrees of freedom I would like in order to accomplish number one and as many other priorities as reasonably possible without compromising number one.
What is the meaning of, “study for a guest?
”
My old English teacher had an aphorism that always stuck with me,
"There is magic in starting."
I've since discovered this is probably a shortened version of Goethe's,
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
why would you want to introduce repetition(habits) into anything