Are You Struggling?

This week I struggled with my mental health but as I journaled I realised it was just a lack of meaning in my day. The last 2 months I've been working on my e-book on relationships  (coming soon) and I had myself in quite a strict routine. When I finished writing I said

 ‘That's it I need to do nothing for a week!’

One week had gone by so now I thought ok let's get back to work. I set myself daily tasks that I thought were achievable, but, in fact I found myself struggling to complete the tasks as I had fallen out of habit.

That feeling when you haven't completed a task you aimed to complete can almost put you off doing any task. The feeling of incompletion can de-motivate us. Just like when you go to a personal trainer for a session and he pushes you too hard and all your thinking is ‘I'm never doing this again ‘  This is why good personal trainers ease you in so that you don't get disheartened. And this is what we must do with our daily habits!

We must ease ourselves into good habits and become 1% better each day. Don’t try to up the pace by 50% in your first week. Yes you might be able to run 5k everyday for a week but how many of us stick to that ? I know I sure haven't ! 

The key to healthy habits is not the intensity of the rep, it's how many reps you do.

So, after being disheartened with my efforts of my daily tasks, I introduced a method from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits.

The two-minute rule 

Instead of aiming for 10 pages of a book, I aimed for 2.

Instead of 5k I did 1k.

Instead of one course i'll do the introduction to the course.

Instead of a 40 minutes treadmill I said I'll watch a ten minute ted talk on the treadmill before breakfast.

Instead of 15 minutes meditating I did 2 minutes.

Instead of doing all my emails I aimed for 2 emails.

Instead of a whole workout I aimed for 10 reps

The key is to master the art of showing up and the habit will soon place itself in the automatic part of the brain. 

Remember learning to drive? How difficult it seemed- and now you can go from one end of the country to the next without even thinking about what gear you need to be in going round a roundabout. This is the goal for your healthy habits. You want to have done that many reps that it seems effortless and automatic. 

How many of you forget to brush your teeth in the morning ? exactly! You can make habits seem effortless if you just put the reps in!

Task for 10 days in a row

Read 2 pages 

Do 2 minutes meditation 

Journal 2 lines

I suggest reading Atomic Habits as your book if you struggle with implementing habits. At the time of reading that book I started a business and it all came down to my daily habits improving by 1%.

Sinead ’It  All Comes Down To Habits’ Hegarty