Changing our habits, we make attempts. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. Why is that? Haven’t you often wondered how can you be more successful in your attempts to create and make changes in your life? I know I have. I usually choose 1 or 2 self-help books a year to learn something new that perhaps will help me be more successful in my career, parenting, or just for my own personal journey. This September I began reading Gretchen Rubin’s new book Better Than Before: Mastering The Habits of Our Everyday Lives and I have worked through the first section of her book which has us learning more about ourselves and how that would apply to understanding our habits or how we approach habits. I have concluded that I’m a Rebel. You can read about my self-discovery about that here. Have you taken her quiz or are reading her book? Are you on a journey to change some of your habits? The next section of the book deals with the many strategies we use to help us change our habits. She has them broken down into 4 key pillars: Monitoring, Foundation, Scheduling, and Accountability. Today, I will be taking a look at Monitoring.
How do you feel about monitoring your habits? I have never been very keen on it. Fits my rebel tendency. When it comes to my own personal stuff, I don’t like to be told what to do, how to do or for how long. But monitoring seems to be a key strategy in categories such as eating, drinking, spending, screen time, exercising etc… Have you ever kept a food journal? Eating healthier is always a goal I have strived for but never hit the target on a very consistent basis. That goes with exercising as well. And well maintaining a budget summary nope I have never done that either. But when I see the road sign speed display I do slow down. I have realized for myself that when it comes to my own personal habits I struggle with monitoring but I have no problem with monitors in place dealing with society or laws. In those areas I’m not a rebel. I very much have to tell myself that I freely choose to monitor my eating or spending and it is my choice to do so and I have the freedom to do it the way I want to do it. I liked Rubin’s last line in this chapter:
I should monitor what is essential to me. In that way, I ensure that my life reflects my values.
As a rebel, I think she is right or at least in my own experience I feel she is right: Rebels have to want to monitor.
After a decade of raising 3 children I finally feel like I’m in a place where I can focus on myself and take better care of myself. But am I ready to monitor my eating habits, my spending habits, my writing/creative time habits in order to foster the change I desire?
3 Essential Tips to help make monitoring successful.
- Give yourself a precise a goal to measure.
- Actual measurement is essential. Now a days many of us use apps on our phone, but if you are like me I still like my paper journals.
- Accurate monitoring is crucial as well, as it helps determine if a habit is worth the time, energy, or money it consumes.
Rubin reminds us about this important point when monitoring our habits: monitoring can become time-consuming and a bit tiresome so only monitor those things in your life that truly matter to you.
I’m currently compiling a list of popular monitoring apps that work for others. If you love an app just let me know in the comments so I can add it to my list. I will be checking out different apps to see if they might work for me but I’m more of a write down and journal kind of gal so I currently have this Erin Condren Wellness Journal which, of course, I have never used but I am going to start tracking my food which is something I have never, never, ever done. I know my eating habits are in a much needed overhaul. This is where I will start. One habit that I’m currently working on is trying to drink more water in my day and in this journal there is a spot to record my water drinking habits. Other areas where I have struggled with my eating regime is consistently eating a healthy breakfast and not snacking through out the day. I wonder if seeing it written down will help a rebel like me. Do you keep a food journal? How has it gone for you?
What habits will I monitor?
With this journal I will be able to accurately see how many times I drink water in my day. I could say as a goal ‘drink more water’ but that is not very precise enough.
Goal #1: I will drink water 8 times during the day. *Record in journal
Goal #2: I will eat a healthy breakfast before 9am each day. *Record in journal
If you go to Gretchen Rubin’s site she has additional resources to help us on the journey of understanding our habits. Go Here to Check our lots of Resources.
The next pillar of strategies is what Rubin calls Foundation which will be the topic of my next post. Next week is Canadian Thanksgiving so I will be enjoying some family time so my next post might not be until the week after. This to will give me about 1 week of trying to monitor my habit of drinking water and eating breakfast in the morning under my belt and I will be able to tell you how its going.
Cheers,
Bonnie Dani
Writer, Educator, Blogger, Mom
Email: [email protected]