My habits failed me but I still believe

I'm a habits person. I took a brain science course covering habits, I follow James Clear, and I track up to three new habits a quarter in my agenda. I'm in. So why did all my habits fall apart?

First off nearly half of our day is habits so it wasn't like all of my habits stopped. I mean I kept brushing my teeth even if I didn't use my Waterpik for a while. You get the picture.

But I did stop doing a few things that I had been doing for more than a year. So if habits on average take 66 days to create (with at least one noted range of 18 to 254 days) those puppies should have been locked in. So what gives?

Well, first off it's important to remember the aspects of a habit. You've got the trigger or cue, the craving that it prompts, your routine or action, and then the reward. And then there's habit stacking where you use one habit as the trigger for the next.

Cues can come in multiple forms: location, time, event, emotions/thoughts, and other people. In the mornings things are mostly consistent and within my control so that's a good time for me to focus on some habits. I had a nice little habit stack post bathroom: pills with a full glass of water, meditating, journaling with 3 gratitudes, stretching, and making my bed.

Of those over the summer, I have been consistent with my pills and making my bed.

Tempted to just force myself to get them going again since I know they're possible for me but it's important to take a step back and see what's working and what's not.

Here's what I think the issues were:

• I stopped sleeping - Not entirely but I got Graves Disease which is basically a hyperactive thyroid (happy to connect with anyone on this, I am surprised at how many people I now know are impacted by thyroid issues), it does a bunch of things but one of them is muck with my sleep, so my sleep schedule got screwy and my mornings were thrown off and my normal cues weren't necessarily there.
• I wasn't making time - To do those things I needed time in my morning before I started work and some days I would prioritize sleep, time to get ready, or I just had an early meeting. I had a theoretical short version of these but I stopped being as systematic about how much time I wanted and calculating that (partially due to the sleep thing).
• Lack of reward - While I see the value in each of those things the immediate rewards for me are limited. I know how much science says meditation is beneficial in a variety of ways but I don't know that I feel it for example. And the negative of not doing them wasn't so strong. If I don't take my pills I know that's bad and if I don't make my bed it bugs me every time I see it.
• Sanctioned slack - There's just a limit to what we're dealing with at any given time and so I was ok that I dropped a few things while I was figuring things out. So if my morning habit stack wasn't happening I was actually ok with that for a while, it felt like I was taking a little control back where I didn't have it.

I still believe that we are what we do so creating habits intentionally that create the life I want is a process I know is helpful for me to lean into. Knowing what was going on helps me create systems that will better set me up for success.

So what's the new plan? As noted I normally create goals quarterly but since some of these are reinstituting I'll check in when October starts to see whether I want to adjust for Q4 but here's what I'm prioritizing.

• Stretching - My back is a little tweaked and I think lack of stretching and reduced walking are contributing to that, my trigger will continue to be getting up and making my bed so I think this should be good.
• Walking - Makes sense then that this is also on the list, my goal is to schedule time to get my steps back up to 8k on average, this is for sure a prioritize and schedule one, it takes about 80 minutes to do that.
• Water - I know this is a good one but mostly I'm picking it because it's not one that takes a lot of time, I don't want to add a bunch of things that take time all at once because I know it's harder to start and to sustain.

Wish me luck! I'll post in my IG stories as to how it's going. Do you have any habits you're working on so we can get on board together?