From Self-Care Goals to Habits, Part 1
“I’m going to meditate every day!”
How often have we said this, or something similar, and then just never done it?
If you've been there, you are not alone. I’ve been there too! It's one thing to resolve to make a change in your life. It's another thing entirely to actually do it.
This failure happens for a couple of reasons: First of all, it's simply easy not to change. We get locked into habits that are comfortable and easy—even if they're not good for us—because our brains like being efficient. Second, most people don't know how to implement changes effectively. (It’s me, I’m “most people”!)
Despite good intentions and planning, life gets in the way sometimes. But I recently learned about a method for turning my self-care goals into habits after reading The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Morgan and Michael Lennington. This book completed changed how I approach my goals and habits. Morgan and Lennington provide a step-by-step technique for executing your goals in a shorter period of time (hence the 12-week year reference).
For the rest of Quarter 2, we’ll walk through the steps from the book and apply it to our self-care habits! So I highly recommend buying the book for yourself to read along!
but where do we start?
Write the vision and make it plain!
Before providing the actual technique for executing your goals, Morgan and Lennington first invite us as readers to identify our vision. As planner users, you probably already know what advice I’m going to give here:
Write it down.
Whether in your paper or digital planner or in your notes app on your phone, get your vision out of your head and onto paper/digital space. Where do you see yourself in one, three, and even five years? What habits do those versions of you practice? What habits do you need to practice to execute your vision? As you’re writing your vision, consider ALL areas of your life! The nine areas of self-care are a great place to start: digital, emotional, mental, practical, financial, spiritual, social, professional, and physical.
As we enter this journey together in time for Quarter 3, here are some things to remember as we learn about shifting from goals to habits:
Sometimes it's not enough to feel motivated.
Think about a time when you wanted to do something but for some reason, you just weren’t motivated enough to do it. Maybe the activity seemed fun, and you had every intention of trying it out. But still, you found yourself resisting the idea of doing it.
Or maybe there’s something that’s important to you—like exercising more or eating healthier foods—but for some reason, you never end up getting around to doing these things. It’s like this feeling of motivation is always just out of reach.
It may not be that your motivation is missing at all. Maybe your real problem isn't lack of motivation...maybe it's lack of clarity. Be intentional and write down your vision to help bring you clarity!
We must also understand how to set ourselves up for success.
You may think that setting goals is about being able to hold yourself accountable for achieving them, but this actually has very little do with it. Whether or not we succeed has far less to do with personal accountability than we would like to believe—it's mostly a product of our circumstances and the environment in which we find ourselves.
Think about what happens when you set a goal: if your environment doesn't encourage you toward success, then there's no reason for you to meet that goal; instead, the environment works against you achieving that goal and makes it difficult for you (or even impossible) for you to succeed! For example, if I have a back injury and want to be healthier by running more often but don't have an accessible route outside where I live due to uneven pavement and snowy weather conditions in wintertime, my odds of succeeding are low because my environment isn't supporting me in reaching my goals. In this case, moving somewhere where I could run easily would be essential before I could effectively start working toward running regularly.
As we go on this journey together, be prepared to be flexible so we can set ourselves up for success.
Sometimes you need some help to be able to turn your goals into daily habits.
All of our self-care goals can only really be achieved through consistent and sustainable practice. So since we’re talking about turning these goals into habits, let’s look at how you can support yourself in making them happen.
First, think about your support network. If you don’t currently have a buddy who is also working on similar self-care goals, seek one out! It doesn’t have to be someone you know personally; I make sure to follow people online who are looking to improve themselves in body and mind, so that I always have someone I feel connected to in my search for bettering myself.
Other ways of seeking support include finding or becoming a mentor or coach who will help you with your goals. In the end, it doesn't matter how you do it, just as long as you remember that sometimes asking for help is exactly what we need to do to reach our goals!
Finally, there’s a fine line between challenging yourself and being unrealistic. If your goals are not sustainable for this season of your life, you may burn out! Be sure to check out The 12 Week Year for yourself and to follow along!
Until next time, take care of yourself!