I’m a person who lives a pretty irregular lifestyle, switching jobs and moving often, teaching or bartending or doing whatever else to support my family and creative endeavors. My days are inconsistent in their orientation, which is something I’ve actively sought in my adulthood, but that can make routines hard to solidify. Luckily, I practice a great deal of self-forgiveness and shame reduction nowadays, though it wasn’t always so kind to myself. But you have to live with you, so you need to forgive and move on when you slip up from betterment routines and practices. Going to the gym is great, but if you hate yourself because you’ve missed the last couple weeks, that isn’t helping anything either.

For today’s Monday Motivation, I’m going to talk about habit maintenance, and some tricks to get things started or restarted after a lapse or binge.

Minimize Conscious Societal Pressures

Whew. That was quite the mouthful. But honestly, this is the big one. Minimize pressures that come from outside yourself, and focus on the ones that really forward your interests, your learning, and your intentions. There is a lot of productivity pressure and fame mongering in our era, but remember that none of that really matters. Sometimes that societal guilt really holds us back, so its important to let go of any standards being set by invisible pressures intrinsic to a social existence.

I often think of things I should be doing, and it makes me procrastinate even more. There are obviously social pressures that shouldn’t be ignored, like a job, but most of the pressure from society we put on ourselves. Stop trying to fit into any preordained image and start accepting and forgiving yourself for you are.

Start Small

There is a ton of great writing on this, but here are some essentials. When looking at a daunting task or new practice — say going to the gym — start in increments purposefully less than what you can do. Go to the gym for five minutes every day, not to exceed ten. I’m serious. Not only is going for five minutes better than not going at all, but what an easy thing that is to commit to. Apply this to any creative pursuit or learning goal. Five minutes of Duolingo is five minutes better than no Duolingo.

Not only that but doing for something that small an increment won’t feel daunting. What’s five minutes? What’s five pushups? Give yourself a win to get you started and make your early goals readily achievable. Before you know it, you’ve been smashing your five-minute goal for a week. You’ve gone to the gym every day for a week, played piano, practiced algebra, whatever. You begin to see yourself as the type of person who does X, and visualization is a powerful tool to manifest who we want to become. Whenever the small increment becomes too easy and the habit is solidified, up your investment is controlled increments. If you find yourself starting to cool down on that good habit, go back a little bit until the task or action seems simple again.

Keep Starting Over

When you fall of the wagon, get right back on. Every damn time. One of the greatest secrets to success in this life is persistence. The more you do something the better you get. The more you show up, the better you get. It is more often the person who has taken thousands of shots who makes the impossible, than the person who has never shot at all. This has been a key for me to realize. I’ve fallen off of betterment practices like crazy, and when I do, there is often guilt to start again. But why is that there? What value does that have for me or my life other than apathy and sloth?

In meditation, I practice bringing my focus back to the breath, to recenter every time I become distracted. And there is not guilt when I err, because to err is human. So, when my thoughts float away from the void and take the form of some distraction, I try to let go whenever I realize. That practice has been a great analog for my self-betterment too. It examples a low-stakes model of the value of constant effort and mindfulness and how to let your ego go and try again. So, when my diet slips or I miss the gym, I’m trying to forgive myself a little more, and do a little bit better that next moment. The most important step is not the first one, but the next one.

A good example of reforming habits might be this blog haha. I’ve been in a better writing habit it is true, but I’m failing to live up to my own challenge to myself thus far. Though this is where I’m trying to forgive myself and move on, but so rarely do we cut ourselves slack. So, I will restate and try again. Welcome to the Battle Blog. My name is Kyle Battle, and I’m just a guy who lives a pretty cool/weird life, trying to spread a little bit of light in the world. I hope you have a great week, and I hope I see you here tomorrow. Only tomorrow will tell, but here’s to marrying actions to these words and making pages!