At the beginning of 2018, I said to myself: “What if I tried to write something new (for the blog or for my second workbook) every other week?
To help myself do it, I set up a reminder in my digital calendar that sends me an email alert every other Thursday at the beginning of the day.
Guess what?
It didn’t work at all, but why? What has been keeping me from writing? Why has it been so hard for me to regularly keep doing something that I love so much?
How has it impacted me?
When I received the reminder that I set for myself, I felt obligated to write something, no matter where my attention or my focus were at that moment, and when I feel that way, I just don’t do it, even when it’s about something that I truly love like writing.
I felt unmotivated and sad inside.
I don’t know why, but something was broken inside. Yes, it did that. But it’s just now while I’m writing about it, that I realize the reasons behind it and understand why I have been dismissing my calendar reminder and failing to do what I had intended.
What should I do?
Here are my 7 secrets about keeping habits (like writing in my case), that have brought me to write this post:
#7 Don’t make it something that you need to do (an obligation), but something that you want to do (a desire).
#6 Stop blaming yourself about not maintaining that habit and do something about it. In my case, this post is my way to break that pattern. I have also dropped that calendar reminder. It’s gone and it feels so much better inside.
#5 Accept that not being able to maintain that habit is OK.
#4 Ask yourself: what else is keeping my attention at the moment? Maybe you will be surprised and learn something new.
#3 Be kind to yourself. If you love it, it will come back. So please, be patient and give yourself some love.
#2 Identify what you are passionate about. It sounds easy to tell what your passions are, but having a list have helped me stay connected with what I truly love.
#1 Do it, even if it’s not 100% perfect. I wanted to write again and here I am, sharing a blog post with you.
Now it’s your turn to share what your secrets about keeping habits are. Will you?
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