Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [26]
You can use Discardia in June as a trampoline to give you a big bounce forward and break up patterns of stagnation. This holiday period is about solving entropy by making choices and acting on them. You’ve gotten your solid ground in place and given yourself a good footing. Now it’s time to jump, knowing that your landing is already prepared.
What’s dragging you down or holding you back?
Where is your energy going?
Is your energy fueling your engines or just polluting your world?
Take a good hard look at the patterns in your life right now, decide what you want to change, and begin those changes. As Discardian and fine-art painter Laurel McBrine said, “Refusing to do some things sets you free to do what you really want or need to do.”
Symptom #10: Hello, Same Old Bad Habit
Solution #10: Transform It!
It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting.
—E. Stanley Jones, missionary and theologian
Finding ways to change
Habits are not something we change overnight. Successfully replacing a bad habit (one that interferes with you being the person you want to be) with a good habit (one that helps you progress toward your goals) requires cutting yourself a little slack.
It’s not going to happen immediately or bring 100% success. At the same time as we are being patient and understanding with ourselves, we have to be relentless. Habits change through daily effort and consistent pressure to take an action that currently isn’t our default behavior.
There are two unproductive approaches to changing your habits: beat yourself up over not having the good habit already and keep having the bad habit. In both cases, you have to catch yourself when taking the wrong approach and stop.
No excuses. No browbeating. No backsliding. No overanalysis. No delay. Right now, in this moment, have the good habit instead of the bad. When you fail, well, that wasn’t it; next moment, have the good habit instead of the bad.
Escaping the bad-habit rut
Use the energy that leads you into the bad habit as fuel to carry you into another and more satisfying action. Jinx McCombs suggests envisioning what you will do in place of the bad habit and choosing something physically incompatible with what you’re trying to stop doing. The new alternative should be specific, not general, so your habit-driven brain doesn’t have to do any work in order to jump out of your current rut.
For example, when you find yourself biting your fingernails yet again, stop and do the alternative on which you’ve decided: perhaps put lotion on your hands, sharpen a pencil, or practice a sleight-of-hand coin trick. Bad habits are often a way of expressing energy, so give that energy somewhere to flow that isn’t fighting against your goals.
Just get moving
Want to get fit? Stampede right over that wussy, whiny inner voice when it is saying, “Oh, I dunno. We don't really have to go for a walk, do we?” or “Okay. Five blocks is enough, right?”
I'm not talking about the voice of your injured knee or something like that; I mean the inner grub that just wants to sit on the couch, wiggling its tail at the TV and shoving nachos into its maw. Don’t give in to it. Walk an extra 10 blocks before lunch. It won't take long at all, and it's good to shake a leg. While you're at it, tell the grub to shut up and choose something healthy for lunch that won't throw you into an afternoon food coma. Once you get moving you’ll remember that you actually enjoy it, even if sometimes it’s only for that sense of accomplishment.
Changing food habits
Want to eat healthier? Stop your hand as it is about to pick up some junk food and put it in your shopping cart. If you’re trying to change the habit of gaining weight, here's the deal: Take in fewer calories than you burn. Two methods, therefore, are best in combination: eat less and exercise more. There is no negotiating out of that principle. You can eat lower calorie foods in the same quantity or eat high-calorie foods in smaller quantities. You can