When life gets in the way of your new habit
As I mentioned last week, I am now a person who journals every day. I’ve known for at least two years that future me does that (and more), but until last Tuesday, I hadn’t taken the steps to develop those habits.
News flash: If your future self has certain habits, at some point you need to start them, or you are pushing your future further and further away.
So far, I have in fact journaled at least once per day, every day. Which is an improvement over the many times in the past I’ve tried to develop a new habit.
With only a week of journaling under my belt, it’s too soon to crow about it being a permanent change, right? Right.
If you have some sort of new habit that you want to initiate, I invited you to join me in this free group coaching shindig I’m running for the summer (until August 21st). I will be blogging 5-6 times per week here, posting inside the Actually, I Can Facebook group, and sending 5 or so emails to anyone who signs up for this here coaching thing.
Also? I will be hosting three free group coaching sessions to help folks sort things out, figure out what might work, and deal with any obstacles or boundaries that are coming up. Here’s where to sign up for this free thing.
Today I’m talking about what happens if life gets in the way of your habit.
As I said, a week in, I’m good with mine. But mine is journaling, which is really just using a bit of time in the day to sit down with a notebook and pen and write some shit down.
In Saturday’s journal post, it occurred to me to tackle what to do if you are struggling with your new habit because life is getting in the way. At first, I thought that might only apply to others, but truly . . . the same “life stuff” applies to all possible new habits.
Here, in no particular order, are some of the ways that life might interfere with your new habit:
You get sick or injured. Maybe it’s a migraine, a pulled muscle, a stomach bug, debilitating anxiety or other mental health issue, or Covid. Maybe it’s something even more serious—something that requires medical attention or even hospitalization.
Someone you love gets sick or injured, and requires your attention. Maybe you have to travel, or provide daily care, or visit them often, and all that focus and attention you have to give them precludes you engaging in your habit the way you wanted.
There’s a death in your world. Could be a person, could be a pet.
The Supreme Court decides to take away (more of) your rights, and you are just so pissed off that you can’t even.
Something amazingly wonderful happens to you or someone you love. You get whisked away on a surprise date or vacation. There’s a major life event (a good one—like an engagement, a wedding, a baby) and you are out of your mind with joy.
Some serious shit hits a nearby fan. It could be you or a loved one who is having some other sort of crisis, like dealing with a break-up or legal issue or serious work problem. Maybe you work for Amazon and have forced overtime and few breaks due to “Prime” days (yes, they legit force everyone into overtime for it and don’t allow vacations, so no wonder folks want to unionize).
Energetically, you’re spent. You have no spoons left in your energy bank. You have no fucks left to give.
You may have noticed that “you didn’t have time” is not on the above list. That’s because you and I both know that time stretches and contracts in interesting ways, and that if our thing was truly a priority, we would do it. Because if you had time to be on social media or watch literally anything on any screen or had anything you consider “down time”, you had time to do your thing.
Assuming that life truly got in the way:
First, ask yourself if you care that your habit got interrupted. The answer may vary depending on what happened, how badly it interrupted or disrupted your life, and on how you feel about what happened.
Most likely, if something amazing happened, you are happy that it did, and you don’t mind so much that you got interrupted.
I am thinking right now of a friend from the West Coast who spent a bunch of time in Scotland recently, enjoying the trip of her dreams. She had a really long streak going on Babbel where she practiced her second language every day. I mean a LONG streak, like 994 days or something. Her streak was broken on her travel day home due to the combination of travel times and time zones, so she started again at one. She doesn’t really mind, because she knows what happened, and so enjoyed her vacation that she is building a new streak without worrying about it.
If something crappy happened, however, it is entirely likely that you do care about your habit being interrupted.
That’s likely because when crappy things occur in life, it upsets you. Having something interrupted or disrupted is just ONE MORE THING that went wrong and that you get to be upset about. So if that’s the case, maybe move on to the next question.
Ask yourself if missing out on your habit will make things worse for you or anyone else.
If you missing your habit will make things worse for you or for those around you (whose feelings you care about), assess whether there is a way to pick it back up.
A few years ago, before I became a coach, my father had to have treatment for esophageal cancer, so on three separate occasions, I packed myself up and spent weeks living with my parents in South Carolina.
Weeks. Months, even.
As in two weeks for diagnosis, six weeks for radiation and chemo, and another month or so for his surgery and recovery from surgery.
I was not only away from my home, my husband, and my cat, but I was stuck in my parents’ house (they moved there in 2011) during a time of stress. And of course there is always drama in their house, which is a story for another day.
The first time I was there, I dropped ALL my usual habits. In part because I flew down for what I thought would be a two-day visit and ended up staying for two weeks, so I didn’t have my laptop or art supplies or journal or anything else, really. I had two changes of clothes and some medications and that was it.
The second and third visits, I prepared to be away, and made sure I could keep up with some of my essential habits. I took the things I needed in order to maintain at least some of my habits. I made sure to take walks and use some of my energetic practices to feel better and remain sane. I bought Epsom salts and took salt baths to help clear my energy field. I brought my essential oils that I use daily and used them daily.
If you are like my friend in Indiana who absolutely loves to work out and gets cranky and foggy when she doesn’t, then making sure you have time to work out despite life being a bitch is probably better for you than skipping it. Sometimes you have to push things around and do what’s best for you even if other people don’t get it (kinda like how I don’t “get” the need to workout like a fiend 7 days a week).
If you have to take a break from your habit:
It doesn’t mean you don’t have that habit.
If I broke my hands and couldn’t write in my journal for six weeks, it wouldn’t make me a person who doesn’t journal. It would make me “a person who journals every day who can’t do it right now due to outside circumstances.”
It’s not a contest. There is no official scorekeeper.
If you are keeping score or keeping track, and you miss a day, why don’t you try starting again the next day. Missing one day (for whatever reason—heck, maybe you just forgot!) doesn’t mean that things are irrevocably ruined and therefore you shouldn’t bother ever again.
If you think you have to do something a certain, exact way at a certain, exact time under a certain, exact set of circumstances for a certain, exact duration every day of the week . . . then maybe the issue isn’t that you can’t do your habit. Maybe you just need to cut yourself a slack with your own expectations.
Stop being a perfectionist about it. Stop applying so many rules. Stop policing yourself and your conduct and looking for faults.
Because from where I’m sitting, you are doing just fine, beautiful friend.
