I wrote a little bit about breaking life up into smaller chunks in my ideal week post. But I just wanted to elaborate on this feeling a little bit more. This is an ideal I actually got from a counselor who is working with a family friend of ours. The councilor was helping the person feel that they had the power to “not do” an activity. This is something that I think is common in “addict” counseling, however it was new to me. The idea is simple: “you don’t have to not do this activity for the rest of your life, you only have to not do this activity TODAY“. This is obviously a very simple idea/concept but for whatever reason it really resonated with me, only I interpreted it as: “don’t think about progress towards your larger goal, instead think about what progress have I made for this goal today“. (yea my wording needs some work on that one haha).
It is actually something that is hard for me to articulate, but this thought process just really resonates with me. Tying it to my goal of exercising has been especially effective. When you think about something that you want to do every day, it feels so daunting. However when you just break it up into 1 day chunks, aka “what have you done for me today” it feels very easy. I couple that with “grading” myself on a weekly basis. 2 friends and I started a workout challenge calendar that really helps as well, I will be added a post detailing that workout calendar and a link to an example google doc.