Trying to establish new habits is hard. A few weeks ago I sat down with a notebook and tried to plan out my days.
I was going to dedicate a certain amount of time to work, exercise, personal administration, writing and preparing for my podcast. It was a great plan.
But plans fail all the time. Usually they fail because we forgot to take into account a constraint or requirement. In my case I lied to myself about how tired I was likely to be, or, how disproportionate my exhaustion would be to my motivation.
Often it’s important to realise that we’ve planned poorly and we need to do it again.
My thesis for the next plan is that I was trying to do too much. Maybe I need to continue incidental administration while keeping an exercise regime. Maybe I need to work out what is more pertinent before I commit to a change.
That might be the hardest part:working out which aspect I want to improve more.
Building good habits requires honesty about what is actually best for me and what can wait until later.
And honesty is hard.