Sunday, March 20, 2016

The Lazy Perfectionist gets imperfectly active

While googling "lazy perfectionist" (because I just read the Elizabeth Gilbert book Big Magic, and that idea really cracked me up/resembled me), I came across the website of a Christine Carter. I started poking at her 90 day Habit Program, and realized, I have found my newest project!

I'm on day 5 at this point, and I always feel reassured when the program I'm currently doing is reinforced by programs I've already done. (I believe that's called confirmation bias?) So yeah, I think it's going to be good. Plus, I get to be in another Facebook group, and there's text reminders (which is a new one, but less annoying than getting texts about coupons from retailers, so I guess I'm cool with it), even accountability buddies (which I am stubbornly going to resist).

So what habit to pick? She's got that covered. The one that supports the feeling you want to have. Whoa, confirmation bias via Danielle Laporte too? Luckily, I have already made my desire map, so I focused on feeling Resilient. I would like to feel loose clothing all around me. I would like to be bouncy and able to recover from illness and setbacks and overindulgence like a rubber ducky in a duck race.

My photo from 2015 Art Prize, of the Great Race by Michael Peoples.

Since this sounds a lot like feeling healthy, I decided to focus on my health. By remembering that food and drink can support my resilient health goals or undermine them. By finding the key stone habit and the trigger and following the program. 

So I am going for a walk every day. And the tricky part is that it can be a very short walk, as short as around the block. If it can be longer, that would be fantastic too, but around the block is nothing to discount. I wanted the trigger to be getting home from work, but here it is Sunday night, and I realized I only responded to that as the trigger, well, 1 out of 5 days. But I didn't start until Wednesday, either, so maybe next week will be a better test. 

I'm already envisioning this going so well that I'm making lists of other habits to implement or break. Maybe I can plan my meals! Clean my house! Meditate! 

But first, I have to walk around the block.