"We are what we repeatedly do - Excellence is not an act but a habit"
Aristotle
It's all over. The madness has ended. Christmas and New Year has passed and for most of us it's back to reality. The insanity of over eating, over drinking, over spending and over everything or simply just lolling about doing nothing is at an end. It's time to get back to face work, life, routine, reality. Oh god! How awful is that?
The adrenaline of a New Year and mass public holiday is over and it's time to face up to the cold hard reality of what you agreed to do on New Years Eve. Come on, be honest how many of you made some kind of pledge to follow in 2014? How many have you have broken it already?
It is a month/time when most of us commit to some kind of change. A New Year, New Me. The usual suspects being stopping drinking or smoking, losing weight, getting healthy or changing jobs. The list can be endless.
Some believe in Resolutions, others in goals. Some don't believe in them at all. After all every day is a day to commit to a new goal. We only ever have 24 hours in the day. So why wait until January 1st to try and affect change? And then January 2nd when many of us have fucked the resolutions anyway?
It's daunting to completely change something in a snap decision when the whole year stretches out ahead of you. In most cases it's already doomed to failure. The pressure is too great. 12 months is a long time. Lets face it 12 hours is to much sometimes.
Making the commitment to change is not the issue, it's the HOW you do it, how you CONTINUE it, until it becomes a habit and NORMAL way of living. That's the money shot right there.
I find it easy to talk about change but tough to do it. "I'll do it tomorrow" becomes all too familiar. This causes low level frustration/mild unhappiness.
The other problem is consistency. I love a good binge see. I binged on alcohol, food, exercise, sex or pretty much anything I fancied. I do it as much as I can until I cannot take anymore. Then the pattern is to go back to a kind of denial process until the next urge to binge comes along. There is almost a sense of excitement and freedom from the 'fuck it' syndrome.
How many people will lose weight and then celebrate by going on a 4 week eating binge Or stop drinking for a period of time and then congratulate themselves by getting totally shit faced? It's madness isn't it?
Short periods of change are good but when they quickly revert back to old ways it is demoralising. You almost resign yourself to this pattern of behaviour forever.
It can also apply to creativity, work or hobbies. How many times have I said, "I'm going to learn the guitar", or "I'm going to learn a language", or "next year I'm going to do stand up comedy." The guitar will be purchased, the lessons booked and then put down again after a month because I'm not a genius and it takes effort. How many of us have a guitar, a bike, a pair of running shoes, yoga mat or a gym membership that we bought with the best intentions but have rarely been used?
Sustaining change or learning new ways requires effort, discipline, diligence and continual practice. None of these come easily to me naturally - nor to most people I would guess.
I'm coming round to the way of thinking that denying oneself something is a short term fix. It's almost as if a psychic change or a pattern/life habit change needs to happen so that you are not missing it. Instead a more natural organic process of elimination takes place so that good habits replace bad. So that whatever it is you choose to do just becomes a normal part of your life.
Sounds logical doesn't it? But is it easy to do? You're joking! No way, otherwise there wouldn't be multi billion dollar self help, nutrition, fitness, counselling, pharmaceutical industries, or blogs like mine. Instead we'd all be super human machines powering on.
It's clear to me that change requires great effort. Habits are difficult to break but the good news is they are not impossible. We don't have to resign ourselves to being a certain way. Nor do we have to deny they exist. Instead recognising the patterns is a crucial start. The next important process is to learn how to change them. (the whole reason for this blog)
I believe this is a process. It takes time to realise your patterns and identify the problem habits. Whether it be physical ones or emotional/mental ones. Then the process of changing them can take place.
The trick is not to be too hard on yourself but be firm at the same time. We know ourselves when we 'give up', or sit in a problem. In AA there is a great slogan, 'Easy does it but do it anyway.' I like that. It's gentle, loving but firm. At the end of the day change is an action not a desire.
A pal of mine sent me a link to a belting piece about William James, the American Psychologist & Philosopher I mentioned yesterday. He was one of the great inspirations of AA and wrote a book in 1887 called 'Habit', a short treatise on how our behavioral patterns shape who we are and what we often refer to as character and personality.
The link is below if you're interested, but essentially his description of it
"What is so clearly true of the nervous apparatus of animal life can scarcely be otherwise than true of that which ministers to the automatic activity of the mind … Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself; so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do, under like circumstances, without any consciously formed purpose, or anticipation of results."
In essence our habits rule us, our behaviours, character, personality, life. They become instinctive. Grooved behaviour over a long period of time. So a simple list on NYE is never going to change them. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can affect this change ourselves so quickly & simply
He also went onto describe how to change habits;
- The acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall reinforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all
- Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. Continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right … It is surprising how soon a desire will die of inaction if it be never fed
- Seize the Very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you
aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new ‘set’ to
the brain.
Here is the link to the whole piece of your interested;
In essence to me, that means - create momentum of the change/habit you want to make. Make it public if possible. Commit to it. Practice it every day. Train the brain to think a particular way about it. Never falter and if you do, get straight back on the horse and don't lapse back. Seize the opportunity to make it 'normal' in your every day life. Until the brain makes it habitual. Until it becomes you.
Simple huh? Is it fuck but I'm prepared to give it a try. What else do I have to lose? Apart from face/dignity/pride?
As the quote from Aristotle said, "we are what we repeatedly do". So if I've been used to waiting, beating myself up, being negative, projecting the worst, thinking I'm not good enough, avoiding, procrastinating, being indecisive, feeling sorry for myself, under-earning, being jealous of other's success. That is what I become. It perpetuates this into the truth. It becomes my reality. Coupled with a massive ego and high expectations it creates chaos, unmanageability, unhappiness and almost perfect laboratory conditions to act out in addictive ways. It keeps me 'down there'. In the madness for want of a better term.
Yesterday. New Years Day was a good day. I wrote the blog. Got great feedback. Was ultra positive and hopeful. I did nothing all day (isn't that what your supposed to do when it's pissing with rain and you've got to bed at 7am) and it felt good. My head was calm.
I decided not to commit myself to giving up smoking, DC, sweetener & cutting down on this and that. I figured I will try to do it organically. Weaving it into wider changing habits/life/thinking patterns. There is much work to be done. I am aware 'The Inside Job' will not happen overnight, (though some nights I pray that I will have a spiritual awakening in my sleep, wake up with a new brain and be happy, joyous & free. But then I do actually wake up and sigh, 'fuck, still me then')
As it turned out I didn't drink diet coke yesterday and my desire to binge on sugary shit at 10.30pm was abated with a few Custard Creams, when everything in my body was screaming out to binge on 2 litres of ice cream, a trifle (large), a cheesecake (large) and 4 mars bar ice creams (my usual binge which would probably be puked back up.) Instead I had an inner conversation and for once exercised some self control. It felt good. It felt unusual and new.
On more mundane matters I was awoken by my girlfriends English Bulldog called Bentley at 4am this morning. He was trying to get on the bed and barking. I was in a deep sleep and remember thinking to myself, 'this is unusual', which was followed by, 'man he's farted and that smells of shit'.
I woke up and there really was a smell of shit, so I went downstairs to be confronted by what looked like an IRA hunger strike from 1976. A dog shit grenade had gone off in the kitchen. It stunk and was all over the place. Fuck me how could such a small bulldog create so much turd?
Welcome to 2014 Nicholas. In case your ego was running away with you as some kind of writing guru. In case you were focusing too hard on spiritually change there's nothing like a mountain of stinking dog shit to bring you back to reality.
There was really only one thing to do that all good 41 year old sober men practicing a solid 12 step programme of recovery could do it that instance. I locked myself in the bathroom and let my girlfriend clear it up. I'm not that well yet. After all it's progress not perfection.
Together We are Stronger
Nicholas Evans
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