- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 0
-
Sparkle (0)
“Put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking out the door.”
I love that you can find essential truth from a Rankin-Bass stop motion animation classic. How do we learn to do anything, how do we make progress towards achieving our goals and how do we create new, positive habits? We go forward step-by-step.
Magpie Girl is planning to go a year without purchasing clothing and inviting readers to join her. I’ve gone a bit over a year now without purchasing any new clothing but I did not do it intentionally. What I did do intentionally was decide to purge my closet of clothes that no longer fit my figure or style. I hung everything backwards and went from there. One by one I turned hangers around or either donated or tossed items. And I found that I didn’t really need anything new. I already had something for every occasion this past year. And by that methodical process of evaluating each piece of clothing to see whether it should remain on a hanger and facing right-side around I created a new habit of only buying clothes when I really need to.
I think had I set out to intentionally not shop for a year it would have been far more difficult to reach the goal. But doing it intentionally might have not only taught me more but also created more new habits. Committing to a year of altering your behavior is big and serves a purpose beyond just changing a habit. But there are smaller commitments you can make in order to create new habits.
Popular wisdom tells us that it takes 21 days to create a new habit. Some teachers prefer the round number of 30 for number of days to challenge us to act differently. Some paradigms urge us to focus on whatever micro unit of time we can handle be that a day, an hour or just the moment we are in, lather-rinse-repeat until the new behavior becomes just what we do.
Regardless of what time frame you feel you can comfortably commit to, the paradigm for shifting remains the same:
1. Pick a habit or behavior to change and set a time period in which to break your old habit and create a new one
2. Start to make the change
3. Repeat daily (or what ever measure of time is appropriate)
4. If you fall off your change wagon forgive yourself and get back on
5. At the end of the challenge period evaluate your results. If you didn’t get to the desired new habit assess whether or not you need to make adjustments to your goal or steps or if you need to do another round of steps.
Not every goal of reaching a new habit will be something you can achieve just by doing something different for 30 days. You might only make a partial change or you might gain insight into your behavior or habit that will allow you either to refine your approach or determine where you need help. But, at a minimum, in many cases, raising your consciousness and awareness is likely a good outcome and worthy of your time commitment.
Have you taken a challenge to change your behavior? How long did it last? How did it work? What did you learn? And, did you create a new habit? Share in the comments and teach it, sister!
BlogHer CE Maria Niles goes step-by-step (and also randomly) at her blog PopConsumer.
Related Reading:
Elisa Camahort Page: 30 days to go from vegetarian to vegan
BlogHer Member IAAdmin: Can you create a New Habit in 30 days?
BlogHer CE Kalyn Denny: Can 90 Salads in 90 Days Inspire You to Eat More Greens?
BlogHer CE Virginia DeBolt: Replace Bad Blogging Habits
BlogHer Forum: Better Blogging Challenges
BlogHer Member Org Junkie: The 30 Day Shred (otherwise known as the blog bandwagon I jumped on)
Megan Smith at Megan's Minute: 31DBBB: The Elevator Pitch, The List Post & Will Ferrell
