30 Day Challenge- Day 18 – when routines shift

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in 30 Day Challenge, making change, thoughts

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So you’re going along just fine with your new habit – you even made it through the doldrums!  And then your schedule shifts.  There’s a trip, or a special occasion, an illness, or a really really busy day.

What do you do?  Do you go ahead and skip a day?  If you do skip a day, does your silly little lizard tell you you have to start over, like life is some game of Candyland or Chutes and Ladders?  Does your mind want you to go back to “go” – and not give you any credit for what you’ve done so far?  Does your mind make it mean that you’re a failure – does it say, “See?  I told you you wouldn’t be able to pull this off.”

Well, if you do find yourself skipping a day, remember that you don’t need to believe any of that ridiculousness tossed out by your mind.  And that’s what it is.  It’s not true and it’s not helpful. Remind yourself of that.

And maybe you don’t have to skip a day.  Maybe you do the thing you’ve been working on at the end of the day.  Maybe you break it into a bunch of pieces.  Maybe you shift things slightly, but not all the way back to the way they were before you started your great new habit.

I’m hosting a retreat this weekend – a beautiful getaway for a small group of women seeking clarity and connection.  I’ve been busy today getting ready, and I’ll be away from home for the next three days.  So I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to stick with my routines.  30 minutes of drawing and 10 minutes of silent time in nature will be no problem – they’re practically built into the retreat.  I’ll skip my ten minutes on the paper maintenance since I’ll be away, and maybe add a few minutes on to paper management in the coming week.  Having a plan for a shift in routine really helps!

Today I let my inner 8-year-old come out and I just played with colors.  I didn’t want to think about drawing, or value, or tone.  I just doodled.  Remember how soothing it was to decorate your notebooks in school?  That’s how today felt.  Drawing hundreds of hearts over and over for about 15 minutes was almost like repeating a mantra.  Then I filled a page with colorful geometric shapes, trying to make it a game, making up rules for what the next shape or color or size would be, without focus on balance or composition.  Just pure play.  They look coolish when I keep them really small.

Grass time happened really late in the day today.  I had a lot of errands to run and coaching appointments this morning.  The gift of enjoying grass time late, still with a loyal cat by my side, was noticing the beautiful sky at sunset.  I’ve learned to ignore the vast number of power lines and the giant transformer and power pole when I look at the sky — the camera has more difficulty editing it out.  See if you can focus on the sunset instead of the electrical paraphernalia.

Keep paying attention to the thoughts you have, especially if you skip a day.  Remember, you don’t have to believe them.  Just start again tomorrow.  Don’t let your mind make a federal case out of it.  Really.  It’s kind of like the sky and the powerlines.  Which one do you want to focus on?

30 Day Challenge: Day 17 – getting through the doldrums

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in 30 Day Challenge, resistance

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“It’s not happening fast enough!”
“I’ve been so good, I should feel different!”
“I’ve worked consistently; I should have more to show for it!”
“I’m sooo tired!”
“I don’t think this is working.”

Ahh yes. During the second half of a challenge there’s a possibility of hitting the doldrums.  Just as  a journey from the North to the South Pole means a stop around the equator where the winds suddenly die down to nothing, the middle part of any challenge, project, marathon run, extended hiking trip or any other undertaking often includes a slackening of the sails, a low spot, a dim point.  Sometimes this is caused by incremental and undetected raising of the bar (see yesterday’s post.) Or by failure to remember to celebrate all the small victories – the four day wins (by day 17 there should have been four celebrations – four big treats! Are you forgetting about the treats?  Are you still believing that you don’t deserve any treats?)  Sometimes it’s just caused by realizing that there’s still half way to go.  Or that turning this challenge into a lifetime habit still seems overwhelming.

Step out of the doldrums.  Give yourself a treat! Or take a nap.  Or change something up.  Or go back and really celebrate, really internalize how far you’ve already come.  Look at the x’s on your calendar, or the stickers on your planner, or the journal entries or writing you’ve done.  Pat yourself on the back.  Remind yourself that life is to be enjoyed, not slogged through.

On that note, I’m headed out to a wine bar with my honey.  I spent my drawing time tweaking my bowl of key limes, but it doesn’t look significantly different in a photo.  I’m happy with it now and planning to start something new and possibly more playful tomorrow.  Here are the bougainvilleas in the yard from just after grass time.

If you’re in the doldrums, shake it off and go celebrate your progress so far!  And if you’re not, go celebrate anyway!  Either way, there’s cause for celebration!

30 Day Challenge – Day 16 – raising the bar

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in 30 Day Challenge, creativity

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So funny – we do something we hadn’t been good about doing in the past- we consistently do it for over two weeks – and now that it’s habit and happens every day, we stop giving ourselves credit and raise the bar.

I’m all for raising the bar, unless raising the bar puts living life right back into the overwhelming place it was before the bar was raised.  Because in my previous experience, that leads to abandoning the fabulous original habit.

Here’s a question:  Why raise the bar?  What’s the motivation behind raising the bar?  How does it feel to imagine raising the bar?  Does it feel like freedom or like overwhelm?

If it feels like overwhelm, ask yourself if what you’re doing right now is enough.  Are the changes you’re implementing right now enough?  Do you really need to pile on more?  Are you ok with loving yourself and your accomplishments just as they are?

If it feels like freedom, ask yourself what will be different if you add something else to your goals and raise the bar.  Ask yourself if you’ll be just as patient and nurturing with yourself as you were with the first challenge.  Promise yourself you’ll reevaluate if things start to feel yucky, just like mountaineers climbing Everest have to go back down in altitude over and over as they work toward the summit.

I’m asking myself these questions right now.  I’ll let you know what I decide. Here’s my appearing to be paint by number (but it’s not!) drawing, complete with supportive cat, and photo that inspired it – they’re key limes, by the way.

and here I am working on it.  My sweetheart came in with the camera and captured this image.  I like it because when I look at it I feel like an artist, even though I like to do my artwork sitting on the floor…

What are you feeling right now?  Is it time to raise the bar or keep it steady?

30 Day Challenge – Day 15 – lizards and monsters

23 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in 30 Day Challenge, animal wisdom, lizard brain

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This morning I was reminded of two scenarios having to do with fear.

The first has to do with lizards and our inner critical voices.

Do you have an inner critic?  An inner fearful voice?  One that says helpful things like, “It’s too late!”,
“Don’t bother.”,
“You always were the messy one.”,
“Oh noooo!”,
“There’s not enough.”,
“What will people think?”, or the best one:
“I have two words for you:  Bag lady.”

Martha Beck says these voices come from a very primitive part of our brain designed to protect us and keep us alive.  This part of our brain was especially useful when our main foes were saber-toothed tigers, but it’s not as helpful now that our stressors are a little more complex and don’t tend to improve when we simply run away from them. Martha calls the part of our brain generating these thoughts the “lizard brain” because it’s so ancient even lizards have it.  It’s designed to send up alarm signals when it perceives any evidence of lack or attack.

We’re always going to have input from our lizard brain – after all, it’s there to protect us, so it thinks.  But we can learn not to listen to it.  Some people like to name their lizard – Mo or Shirley or Gertrude or whatever suits their fancy.  When they have a lizard thought, they say something like, “Thanks, Shirley.  I appreciate your input.” , and then they can go on with their original plans, before their frightened lizard weighed in.  It’s helpful to remember that the lizard voice is fear-based and listening to it can keep you from living life to the fullest.

The second scenario is about a monster.

Last night, I read a parable about a farmer who couldn’t take care of his crops because of this giant monster living in the woods.  He built walls around his house and stayed away from the monster, but he was miserable and his crops were failing and his family left him.  A fairy godmother came along and told him he had to go find the monster and embrace it.  He was so scared to try it, but nothing else had worked, so finally he did.  He found the giant monster and once he put his arms around it, it shrank to the size of his palm.  You probably get the moral of the monster story.

So this morning I was sitting in the yard with the cat on my lap enjoying my ten minutes of grass time.  Suddenly, the tiniest lizard I’ve ever seen (a newborn green anole, I think!) hopped up onto my knee from the surrounding grass and sat there for a moment.  Thankfully the cat’s eyes were closed and he missed the whole thing,  giving the lizard time to jump back into the grass.  Here’s her photo with a pen in the background for size comparison:

and another one… such a cutie!

To put the two stories together, here, literally jumping into my lap, was a tiny lizard that I could hold in my hand.  Not a Komodo Dragon but a just-hatched baby!  It made me think of how important it is to keep stretching, keep facing my fears, keep trying things – keep hugging the monster so it gets small and pacifying my lizard so she doesn’t try to derail my plans.  What strategies do you use to “hug the monster” or “calm the lizard”?

P.S. I did draw today.  My “paint by number” project will be revealed soon.  It’s not done yet!  I also finally hugged the monster and took my ten minute paperwork time to have a good hard look at our finances- I’d been a little remiss lately.  And surprise, just as the monster story goes, there’s nothing to fear. Things are really ok – better than ok – in the finance department.  And I’m excited to set some new financial goals and make it fun – the way I’ve done over and over for the past 12 years to allow us to live debt free, pay off our house, buy two new cars with cash over the last 10 years, and still live what feels like a very indulgent and pampered lifestyle.  More on that sometime soon, I promise! It’s an easy system that involves little more than paying attention (that’s true about healthy eating and time management too, lol!) and I love to show people how to do it! I’m thinking there’s a course on the horizon about the indulgent path to financial security – that would be fun!  Now I’ve said it so I need to hug the monster and do it, right?