Overwhelmed by New Habits

My personal struggle with implementing various productivity, time-management, anti-stress and other techniques into my life has always been that I try to do too much at a time. "Pff, why try introducing every new technique every new month when I can literally write myself a schedule for tomorrow where I wake up at 5 AM, meditate, go for a run, eat healthy all day, do important tasks first while my phone is turned off so that I avoid all distractions etc. etc.?".

Well, here's a spoiler for ya: I'm not gonna wake up at 5 AM and meditate and go for a run and do all of these things tomorrow right off the bat. Just no way. Why? Because by now I know myself. Because by now I know that I get overwhelmed.

And it's already so easy to get overwhelmed these days, right? There is so much information everywhere, both productive and destructive, that you really gotta apply multiple filters to sort out what serves you and what doesn't. And, moreover, even after you've decided on what serves you you'll still have to put off the majority of those things for some time cause, let's be real, it is really easy to get overwhelmed by the good thing, too.

If you've ever been to the sweets section of a supermarket, you know what I'm talking about. (Or a fruits and veggies isle or the chips and nachos isle, whatever tickles your pickle, ya know.) There is so much of the thing you want and like that you become erratic either trying to decide what to choose or putting all of this stuff in your cart only to find yourself later that day, or later that week, or later that month wondering why the heck you'd bought so much: you're so not going to be able to eat it all or it will go bad before you do. Goddammit.

It can all go down just the same way if you're trying to change your life for the better. Once you make a decision to become a better human, it is so easy to fall prey to the desire to change all parts of your life all at once - wake up early and test out Hal Elrod's "Miracle Morning", set a bolder reading goal, work out at least four times a week and, hold on, I also heard something about gratitude mindset, visualisation, and manifesting awesome things in my life, gotta do all of that too!

So, paradoxically, while making a decision to become a more chill, happy and mindful person you might begin to get stressed out over all of those habits that you want to grow as fast as you can. You may even develop a really weird type of schizophrenia where you tell yourself, "From this this day onward, I'm gonna be a super grateful, gentle, kind person but I will also be a savage badass who lets people know wassup". Hold your horses, friend. It's okay to want to be multifaceted but you won't become that overnight, and the sooner you realize this and start focusing at one small thing at a time, the better.

And this is the lesson I myself had to learn, being a chronic taker-on-commitments-I-cannot-follow-through-on and a renowned wanter-to-do-anything-and-everything-the-world-can-offer and an occasional learner-of-Polish-101-in-the-middle-of-the-night-even-though-I-have-a-sociology-exam-tomorrow-morning. I learned that I won't be able to make habits stick unless I show up consistently and don't get derailed. I learned that, in order to see real change, I need to slow down. I learned that, even though it might be painful at first to temporarily let go of all the other self-improvement technique ideas I want to try, the visible result of this one thing that I focus on actually working will make it all worthwhile.

So slow down. Take a deep breath. And make one step and a time. If you do that consistently, I promise, you'll get there.

So if your goal is to be "a super grateful, gentle, kind person who is also a savage badass who lets people know wassup", cut this goal up into peaces that you will work on month after month instead of trying to be that all in one day.

The more concrete your goals are, the better. Say, the first month you're going to work on being grateful, the second month you're going to work on being kind to other people, then you will try a month of badassery where you focus on executing on your goals or acknowledging your worth in interpersonal relationships. Write all of that down - the more precise, the better.

Example:

April, AKA My month of gratitude.

• Every day I write three things that I'm grateful about. Doesn't matter when I do that, I can do it in the morning before I start my day, or during the day when I stumble upon something awesome which makes me feel happy I saw it, or at night before I go to sleep. But when the day is done, I have to have these three things written down.

• I say "thank you" to people more often and acknowledge them for their acts of support and kindness. I will stay mindful about every interaction I have and make an effort to communicate within my mind and to other people that I am grateful for the value they provide me with.

etc.

Make sure your goals are personalized to fit your character, your habits and the rest of the stuff you know about yourself which might prevent you from staying true to the goals. So if you know you're a slacker, don't make the goal too big. If you know you don't do stuff unless it is confined within a timeframe, create this timeframe (e.g. "I will write three things I'm grateful for in my life during my commute to work", "During breakfast with my family I will express my gratitude at least one time to my family member" and so on).

The beautiful thing about these small and precise goals is that there is actually a bigger chance of you executing on them and thus your self-esteem will go up because you are being true to what you plan on doing instead of ditching yourself. When you make plans with a friend and you're all excited about it and then your friend does not show up, how do you feel? Well, when you're not showing up for your own goals and ambition, you're making yourself feel the exact same way. So make yourself a favour, show up. Set goals you know you will be able to achieve. When you see progress you may move on to something else or change things up in a way that will make this process more fun for you or make your goals bigger. But first get momentum. Once you have momentum, you can have the world.