Dailyish

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Any time we are trying to make a change, we inevitable run into the question, “how often?” Do I need to follow the new system every day, every-other-day, 20 days in a row, or once a week?

Therein lies a root problem that can prevent us from achieving a goal. We set a time-based rule ("I am going to meditate for 5 minutes every day") that is usually an arbitrary, unachievable consistency without enough thought about its attainability.

When we don't meet the arbitrary time goal we set, we consider ourselves a failure. We might give up because we can't even make the "simple goal" of regular practice.

That is why we need an adaptable goal for how consistently we do "the thing" we want to do. The adaptability recognizes that life gets in the way sometimes. It acknowledges we are human and need a break at times. It gives us the choice to decide what is "consistent enough" without giving us an excuse to do the thing "whenever".

The concept of dailyish is attributed to Dan Harris, the host of the meditation podcast Ten Percent Happier. The concept acknowledges that anytime we try to be perfect (“do it every day”) we are setting ourselves up for failure. Life is messy. Our schedules are not always ours. Interruptions and unexpected events happen all the time. Requiring ourselves to be perfect is an unattainable goal.

Dailyish asks us to do "what we are trying to do "the thing" as often as we can. It’s not the same as “do it whenever you feel like it.” We would all probably recognize that doing the new act two times a week is not committing to it. To get better or more attentive at something, we need to practice it often. Dailyish gives us the freedom to not be perfect but still hold ourselves accountable.

If we are attempting to do some new trait and expect the motivation for it to come from a rule – you must do it every day for X minutes – we have set the motivation in the wrong place. Rules cannot be the prime driver of motivation. Trying to use that crutch inevitably sets up to not achieve what we wish. There is a reason we don’t floss every day, stop when we see a yellow caution light rather than speed through it or call our mother at 6:00 pm every Sunday night. We aren’t absolute rule followers.

You might think, “if I give myself an excuse for not doing it once, I’ll use that excuse all the time”. That is a possibility. However, by practicing dailyish, we give ourselves a small pressure release. We allow ourselves to miss a day for a reason, but have in the back of our mind that dailyish is expecting us back tomorrow. At some point, we need to trust ourselves that we are in control, not the rule. The rule might be unhappy with us for skipping today, but the rule is not in charge.

Do we really believe that being perfect, being able to put a check mark on every day that we did the thing, is going to lead to success? Or is it our talent, along with luck, and the willingness to keep at it over a long period of time tempered by the unpredictability of life that will drive success?

Dailyish - give it a try.