The Purpose of Habits
It’s that time of year again where we are bombarded with information about how others plan to better themselves in the new year. Maybe we have our own plans too. It could be a time where we are creating metrics to track our success, either personally or professionally- though we’re going to focus on the personal. How many times do we pledge we’re going to radically change our behavior? Going from no movement to being a runner. From eating whatever to a list of foods we can no longer even have in the house. From having a chaotically busy mind to meditating every single day. You get the point.
We often vow to make it a habit. We make our plans, pencil in our new activities to lead to a new us. We start 30 day challenges or focus on the 21 days it takes to establish a habit. And this flurry of change sounds great if it gets you where you want to go.
One part of habit tracking is streaks: how many days or weeks did you go without missing a specific activity. Last year I found this incredibly motivating: I’ve meditated every day for 45 days and it only takes 10 minutes- I don’t want to lose my streak… so I better go do it.
The purpose of forming this habit was to make it a part of my routine, part of my self care, to provide time to quiet my mind. Or at least make space where my brain didn’t have to do anything but to be. Sometimes I found myself getting so caught up in keeping up the habit, that I’d lose sight of what I was trying to gain in the first place. While I absolutely believe habits and otherwise frequent occurrences strengthen the benefits we receive, we have to be careful that we continue doing what we’re doing for the right reasons rather than the objective becoming completion without intention.
Every single day of our lives will not be the same. There will always be seasons or events that modify or even break our routines; some challenging like emergencies or a busier season, others exciting like vacations and adventures. So it might be impossible to never miss a day, but shouldn’t that be okay? Will we lose all our progress by breaking a streak?
I’ve enjoyed how the Calm app has changed its way of highlighting the habit of mediation. Previously, the focus was on not missing a day or else the counter is reset to zero. When I forgot and missed a day, it was often defeating and discouraging to try at times, knowing that it wasn’t realistic that I would have time every single day. Now, the focus is on the week, how many you completed during the week total, with a goal of at least 3. I’ve found the weekly viewpoint so much healthier where I can focus on practicing frequently enough that I’m getting the benefits, but I don’t need to berate myself for not making the 10 minutes in my day.
The habits we pursue should be positively impacting our lives, not negatively. To paraphrase James Clear from his book Atomic Habits, habits are a vote for the person you want to be. We should be moving forward, in a positive direction, toward that person, not running away from what we view as a faulty state. It’s the classic tale of the carrot and the stick and life is much better when we’re eagerly moving toward the carrot than utilizing precious energy to monitor our proximity to the stick.