A Happy New Year to you all and even on only the fourth day of 2017 I am, like many people probably, finding my New Years resolutions difficult to keep. There’s a good chance that by the end of January they will be largely be forgotten about.
Changing behaviours is difficult. How many times in the past, New Year or otherwise, have we promised ourselves we will: quit smoking; lose weight; exercise more; avoid alcohol; be more organised and a whole host of other variations? Understanding the desire and sometimes need is simple putting it into practice is hard work.
Is there a different way?
Perhaps we might consider asking ourselves ‘Daily Questions’ and make them active to focus on effort rather than results. So for example I could ask myself “Did I do my best today to ….. exercise; be more organised; become a better listener or whatever and give each category a score out of 10. A record could be kept daily on a simple spreadsheet. This then could be shared with a close friend or family member on a daily or weekly basis.
The advantage of ‘Daily Active Questions’ is that they focus on our level of trying not a seemingly distant goal or results. Simply sharing our scores on a regular basis with another person will make us feel good when we have scored well. Equally it will cause us to pause and think whether something with consistently low scores is that important to us and should it be a goal at all?
It works … or at least it did for me.
A few years ago I had a health scare which caused me to look at my lifestyle more closely. The imagined immortality of youth was long since gone but I was painfully reminded of mortality. I now walk an average of 80-90,000 steps a week; meditate twice on a daily basis and visit the gym 5 times a week. All of which is as a result of a methodology similar to that outlined above.
If you would like to talk more about this call me on 07525 857389 or email on ricbandrews@gmail.com
