1 accidental piece of advice that changed my life

“A habit is nothing but an act that is repeated every single day. If you miss 2 days in a row then you have fallen out of the habit.”

Words like discipline, habit and consistency were something that I understood only in theory and not in practice.

It was early 2019, I accidentally landed at WeWork in Bandra, Mumbai. At the time I lived in Bangalore and I was meeting a few friends for drinks that weekend.

One of my friends suggested coming over for a 45-minute long workshop that she was attending on the formation of habits.

This workshop changed my life.

Context: All my life most habits like exercise, meditation, eating healthy, reading, etc. that I would pick up or try to be consistent with would invariably suffer as I would always think about it from a perspective of all or nothing. Ex: A 30-day challenge would be a complete failure if I failed on say day 9 or on day 29. It would make me feel as though all the progress made so far is completely lost and it would lead to a lot of negative self-talk. Thus pressurising me to think several times before committing to any new habit.

How it changed my life: While I knew the above approach was faulty, I could never reframe it in my mind. The new framework at the workshop — that missing a day is normal & happens to the best of us helped me change the narrative in my mind. A miss in my routine no longer felt as though all the progress was lost and I could continue without feeling like a failure.

It has been 3 years and I am grateful to this accidental workshop as it has helped me inculcate several new habits that have stuck and have made my life a lot more meaningful.

What about you? What piece of advice has changed your life?

This post was created with Typeshare