See you in the net
Noah
Today marked the final day of the start of my habit change. My final mission is to start a zen habits game. I think I will use this as part of a way to kick off my website. Hopefully you enjoyed these journals and can use them to help guide you to leap to habit changes of your own!
See you in the net Noah
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For my fourth habit sprint, I completed all seven days. I did not face any new obstacles in this week, and I continued to deal with old obstacles in the same manner.
I think I may be ready to move on to a new habit. I will put my first habit in maintenance mode by telling my accountability partners that I only need a weekly check in. I will apply the flexibility skills I learned with my meditation habit to my next habit. So far, the negative thoughts about my habit have been minimal. The only real ones are the nervous energy trying to get me to stop meditating and start my day. But when I watch this feeling build up in me and then realize I can let it go, and that a few minutes more never hurts anything, I am able to overcome this negative thought.
After learning about triggers in relation to positive habits, Leo brought up triggers and bad habits. One aspect of bad habits is using them as a coping method for stress or boredom. I think in general, I deal with stress in a pretty healthy way through running and meditation. Boredom however is a different story. Especially when I have work to do, I procrastinate somewhat often. I typically go to checking email, reading stories online, or other meaningless tasks on my phone. In the future, I think taking a break from my work to walk or do some push ups or even talk with my family would be a far better way of coping.
My tiredness level was very high this week with my energy being very low. I had a intense week at camp and I only got 4 hours of sleep last night. Regardless, I have stayed committed to the habit and I performed my habit for today at 11:40 at night. I still managed to complete the trigger habit cycle and keep my progress going.
Today I learned about guilt from missing a day of my habit. Guilt can sometimes turn one day of missing into two weeks or more. I could see with my tibetan rituals, in which more than one day of rest requires you to start from scratch, how that would be depressing. Thankfully, I haven't missed any days yet, but I am sure I will come back to the topic when I do.
Today, I struggled with sticking to my habit. Part way through, my friend hurt himself doing pull-ups and needed me to help him get medical attention. It was distracting for me to have to start and stop and restart my habit, but I had to help my friend.
Today I felt very relaxed despite the heat. I focused on thinking of flowing like a river.
For the first time so far, I extended the duration of my habit from 1-2 minutes, to 5 minutes. At first, it felt a good deal longer but then it ended before I even realized the time had gone by. Tomorrow, I will try to focus on the moment more without worrying so much about the time.
During today's meditation, I imagined myself as a river that life is flowing through. I have no control, I'm only along for the experience. I did the habit every day last week. I did face the obstacle of traveling to my camp. I will get up earlier this week to beat this challenge. The idea of the river flowing was very calming to me.
Today I learned about forgetting the self. All of the problems we encounter on a daily basis are because we are worried about the self. We think that things should be easy for us because we are special or we are afraid to put ourselves out there because we worry about our self's image and don't want to be rejected. While I meditated today, I focused on the physical sensations such as the breath or the birds chirping outside of my window. By doing this, I was able to forget the self for a moment or two. It was incredibly freeing.
Perhaps it was because I was tired, but today I felt almost as if I was sinking into the bed I was meditating on.
As I went throughout the day, the main character in my mind movie was myself. I had a camp to pack for the next day, and I was stressed all day about getting ready. I was mad at myself for signing up for so many things, and annoyed that I didn't relax more while at home. Instead of only focusing on these things, I realized that I have many things to thank myself for in the upcoming week. At the camp, I am rooming with a friend who changed schools and I rarely see anymore. Also, I get to learn about business, which although not my main focus, is something that definitely interests me. All in all, I let go of my ideals that I could be relaxed and get everything done and go to bed on time. In today's lesson, I learned lots about the (mostly) universal cause of all problems. The problem is that we cling to the mind movie we've created in our heads, and when things don't go according to our ideal, we get upset. During the day today, my family and a few friends went out for dinner. It was getting late and I had my race the next morning, so I was getting a little impatient. My dad and I arrived a little later than my mom, only to find out she had already ordered food. I had texted her my vegan order, but she left her phone in the car and didn't see my order in time. Instead of being thankful for the thought she put in to getting me a meal that had more vegetables than the others, I was upset that she didn't order my food or decide to go out for dinner earlier. In the end, I realized that the thought she put into my order was more important than being a little hungry the night before a minor race. When I realized the mind movie wasn't as important as the people around me, I was able to let go of my expectations and stop clinging to my ideals.
The journal topic of the day is reasons for getting derailed from habits. Of the reasons Leo lists, I think Travel is the one that causes my habit plans to change most of the time. Some things I can do to adjust my habits to my travel plans include getting up earlier, and working my habits into my daily routine. For instance, I could get up 5 minutes earlier so I would have time to meditate. Regarding my running habit, I could simply run a short distance in every park I see while exploring a city. The flow mentality starts today.
The two main fears I noticed while I was meditating are that I'm either not good enough at meditation or that I'm doing something wrong. I treated these fears like clouds, noticing them before watching them drift away. In the end, it doesn't really matter whether you are good enough at meditation or whatever your habit may be, or if you are doing it correctly. All that matters is that you are happy. Be grateful for the opportunity to take the leap.
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Noah AdamsNoah is a high-school student who enjoys traveling, meditating, creating new habits and running. Archives |