A Year to Change: Conversations with women on choice, connections, and clarity in midlife

All kinds of things get in the way of making changes. I am confused by why I can’t really get to make the commitment to exercise more “sticky.” We talked about commitments and being successful at making them to others but not so good about making them for our selves.

I regularly encourage clients to tie a new habit to an old one as one way to kick start a new one. Sometimes that works. But maybe it’s more important to tie the new habit to a whole life. Leslie says she read that Twyla Tharp, the dancer and author of The Creative Life, starts her day with exercise but it’s part of the whole of her life. It’s not just a habit. It’s part of who she is and how she prepares for her life work.

I’m going to reflect on that this week. Think about how exercise is part of my whole life. What would I get if that were true? What would be different or easier? Or at the very least, more fun?

What about for you?
–Leslie and Kerch

 

 What is this committment to change? [20:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Some changes we can plan for — like adjusting your diet. It takes time to make the changes and time for the results of those changes to show up. But some changes are sudden. Death pops to mind quickly. But also the less permanent but some would say almost as traumatic loss of a hair dresser. What do you do when you have to make sudden shifts in the way things work in your life?

Check out this story of WeightWatchers and changing hair dressers.

– Leslie and Kerch

 

 Gradual changes and sudden change: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My “regular” daily 2Do list 24 items on it.  Some of those items rotate through, but there are never less than 24 “have-to’s” that I try to do every day.  A lot of days a lot of those things don’t get done because of Job 1.

What is Job 1?  It’s the thing that you have to do on any given day that probably defines your day, whether you like it or not.  Whether it’s on your regular 2Do list or not.  Whether it’s on your calendar or not.

But your calendar is the first place to look. 

If it’s Tuesday and you have to be at your office all day, then working is your Job 1 for Tuesday.  If it’s Tuesday and you’ll only be at the office in the morning because you have to take your mother to the doctor’s for her one-year cancer follow-up appointment, then I’m figuring that being a Daughter is Job 1 for that Tuesday.

What’s important is that you acknowledge what is Job 1 for any given day.  Some days, you get to pick what is your own Job 1, since there is nothing in your life (or someone else’s life!) that has pre-determined it for you.

I call this “Today’s Opportunity”. 

That 24-item 2Do list I started by talking about begins with a question:  “What are Today’s Opportunities?”.  I ask myself this question early in the morning - just about the time I’m determining the Job 1 for the day.  Sometimes Today’s Opportunities and Job 1 go hand in hand. 

When Kerch comes with me to my annual mammogram (which is very stressful for me), we get to spend time with together in an appointment that neither of us cance..  That’s an opportunity.  And, of course, the mammo would be Job 1 for that day.

Sometimes “Today’s Opportunities” are not as obvious as a calendar item.  In which case, you have the best opportunity of all - to choose for yourself.

Choose early in the day - then you’ll have focus. You’ll be using your time more purposefully and not fall down the rabbit hole of Law and Order  and ER reruns on TNT.  Unless, of course, the opportunity to spend the day watching a Law and Order marathon is your choice.  Hell, you don’t even have to iron or knit at the same time - just watch Jerry!

–Leslie

The difference between conscious acts and habituated behaviour is particular to me as a smoker. My smoking pattern has changed over the years - there are so many places not where I simply do not smoke anymore:

1. In my office

2. In my house (except when I have received a special dispensation to accomodate an extreme situation like, say, the death of a family member)

3. In most public indoor spaces

4. Inside hotels

5. Most of Manhattan.

Yesterday I cleaned out my car, to make it yet another place where I do not smoke. I commute 1+ hours each way to work, so that’s a big chunk of time. Not smoking in the car will be a huge step for me, since I had my first cigarette the first time I was behind the wheel of a car by myself when I was 16 years old. That would be almost 4 decades ago!

So accomplishing that milestone next will get me closer to my goal of not smoking.

Simultaneously, I’m putting Kerch’s house on the list of “places where I do not smoke”.

There’s a new television campaign about not smoking that’s tied to some prescription aid: www.mytimetoquit.com If you are struggling with the nicotine-fiend inside you, it might be useful to you. Especially if the gum and the patches haven’t worked.

But I don’t think it’s about drugs for me. Rather it’s about new patterns of conscious behaviour that need to become habits. For you, too?

Whether it’s smoking or eating or drinking endless cups of coffee, is it really necessary that we always have something in our mouths?

I like Mark Forster. I like his attitudes about planning and accomplishing. I like his writing style. I like his book Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management. (Heck the title is enough to put me into some state of hero worship!)
This morning I read this bit about exercise over in his blog at Get Everything Done:

I would really like to develop a way of keeping fit that takes as little effort as possible, and has a high “stickability” factor - something which does not involve gym subscriptions, equipment, boring repetitions, leotards, forcing oneself out into the cold and wet, huge amounts of time, record keeping, instruction books or any of the other paraphanalia of most exercise programmes, even the simplest.

I really like “as little effort as possible!” I like the reports on his use of the “No S Diet” plan (gosh, do you think I’m a fan? And I’ve never even met the guy.) This is what I call a simple diet. The top three steps of the plan are:

• No seconds
• No snacks (three meals a day only)
• No sweets

Here’s the link to the diet originally developed by Reinhard Engels.

I like that the plan is simple. I need simple. I need just a few rules I can follow. (Check out my priority list on my other blog at Map the Future)

Small aside: Don’t even get me started on parents who make up rules for everything so a kid knows what to do in every situation. Note from an old mom: You can’t make enough rules. And kids WILL (selectively) forget them.

So for my own rules:

If I can do a thing before I can think … “Na, I don’t want to do that.”… then that’s a perfect small step. When I read about Mark’s search for a perfect exercise program with low effort requirement, I felt compelled to write again about my own program. I’ve done my mile or so walk in my own living room or kitchen about three times now. Yep, I know that’s not enough – in the three weeks since I started the plan. But it’s better than nothing. And I am encouraged by Mark’s search. Maybe mine will be able to stick.

Read about the specifics of my plan here.

The only equipment I need is my iPod. I could listen to it thru the stereo. But I like that the music goes straight into my brain without being watered down in the air. I have also found it’s best to do the exercise when there’s no one else in the house either to see me dancing like a maniac OR to hear me signing that which I can not hear.

Oh, and I should tell you, I did go back to Ace of Base – a dance mix or something. I like that it’s more than 6 minutes long so I can get into the moving. As they used to say on American Band Stand WAY back in the day, “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. I’ll give it a 92. Dick.”

Stay tuned!

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