There's a meta-rule that's been very helpful to me: never change today's rules.
For example, for the last 6 months I've been changing what I eat. Sometimes the rules I've picked seem like such a good idea, but turn out to be really challenging. Does that mean I've been too optimistic setting my goals? Or just that I'm in the middle of useful struggle?
By deciding that I'll only change tomorrow's rules, never today's, it makes habit-building a lot easier. If I booked myself 5 hours of music per day this week, then by gum it'll be 5 hours today. But I'm allowed to say, "Tomorrow, though, fuck it."
This constrains my rule-hacking powers in a way that keeps me from undermining my progress when things get hard.
Comments
There's a meta-rule that's been very helpful to me: never change today's rules.
For example, for the last 6 months I've been changing what I eat. Sometimes the rules I've picked seem like such a good idea, but turn out to be really challenging. Does that mean I've been too optimistic setting my goals? Or just that I'm in the middle of useful struggle?
By deciding that I'll only change tomorrow's rules, never today's, it makes habit-building a lot easier. If I booked myself 5 hours of music per day this week, then by gum it'll be 5 hours today. But I'm allowed to say, "Tomorrow, though, fuck it."
This constrains my rule-hacking powers in a way that keeps me from undermining my progress when things get hard.
That is an awesome idea.
What I do is tell myself "I'll start this activity, and if I still don't want to do it after 5 minutes, I'll stop"
Chances are, after 5 minutes, I actually want to keep going. The human desire to not leave something undone works in your favor.