One habit at a time

Sometimes I rate the validity of information by the number of times I come across it on my endless surfing quests. One habit at a time is such a nugget that I’ve read a few times now in the last week. It basically explains why my numerous attempts to impose new habits, or get rid of nasty old ones, have mostly failed. Following the post at Zenhabits I think I’ve done most of his “don’t do this” tips.

This time I’m determined to get it right. However, I’m starting small and use the advice found on Ben Tiggelaar’s website: plan for the worst moments. In short it comes down to thinking about the hard moments, the ones you tend to give in and give up. You often cannot survive such a moment by sheer determination, but a plan that helps you recognize the moment and find a way to get you through it increases the success rate.

Following the outline above I’ll put my habit down here and keep a log as well for all the world to see.

My ultimate goal is to lose weight (don’t we all, right?), but rather than doing all at once, more exercise, less food, healthier food etc., I decided to do just one thing at a time. One tiny habit to get me started. It’s probably low hanging fruit, an easy habit to accomplish, but it should prepare me for the tougher ones ahead.

My habit for now is to not eat any food after 20.30 until bed time. Drinks are ok. The reason is that I often stuffed myself with an entire bag of crisps during TV shows and it went from bad to worse. The habit started last Wednesday and should last at least 30 days, until 9 May.

Wednesday evening started off fine as I was out of the house from 20.00 until 22.00 for Tai Chi class, but on returning even this little habit didn’t work out. I gave in, but not completely. Rather than finishing a bag of crisps I took a small packet of toasts.

Same thing yesterday.

Looking back, I see my ‘hard moments’. Those are the ones on the couch in front of the TV. When sitting at my computer desk I’m much more content with just drinks, ranging from coffee to cola light, but watching TV stimulates an urge to eat snacks.

I’m not going to give up on watching TV, might be a next habit, but I do have to figure out how to curb this snacking. Ok, after some thinking here goes. When watching TV I can do either one of two things:

• I do the laundry, folding or ironing
• I do my nails and pamper my hands with lotion

I don’t always feel the need to do the first, but then there’s the second. I hate having lotion on my crisps and love to have smooth hands and nails.

Success is when I don’t eat anything, partial success is when I only eat a few toasts, failure is when I grab some snack.

Here’s the log so far:

Failure: 0
Partial success: 2
Success: 0
Days into the habit: 2