Getting back to it after a break

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay (Pixabay licence)

There are plenty of annoying and cringeworthy cliches about how circumstance disrupts the rhythm of life such as, “life happens” etc. Although annoying, they highlight luck or enforced changes that happen in life, and these undo the cosy life usually in the form of temporary external stressors. The stressors may be temporary but their effects can be long-term — such as disruptions to routines and habits, and some underlying psychological shifts. Disruptions to habits may not be easily recoverable. Mental barriers begin to ferment, and may need to be broken down and overcome, leading to significant personal stress.

This is a personal reflection on some of my experiences of how life can disrupt habits, and the difficulty in getting back on the wagon. I hope this may be of some use to you.

Forgetting

I used to do much more exercise with more intensity than I do now. Although never a gym-bunny, there was a desire to use the exercise bike, and do a lot more cardio. My exercise goals modest, they suited my lifestyle at the time, and had some effect on my weight. It was a habit’ everyday for fixed amount of time, and a fixed number of repetitions and distance. At the time it did appear to be fairly easy to do because there were clear goals and standards and all I needed to do was to set aside the time and just do it. It was mechanical and no thought was involved. For my part, I did regularly do what I said I would do and this was done at the regular times per day.

So, there was a habit that was being maintained. Then the flu struck. It was not a particularly long-lasting flu, a week or so. With the flu, it was clear that the pains, coughing and fatigue meant that routine had to be put on hold. Although a pause was expected, I thought that this was just a pause and the habit would be easily be picked-up straight away. This was a week or so break — not giving it up for a month or two — so I thought this should be an easy segue back into regularly maintaining this habit, after my short recovery.

But no, I was very, very wrong. This was a nightmare. It really was only a week or so pause. But everything about the habit was a distance memory. Like the extreme past, a weak and faded memory, it felt unreal — like it never existed and was a dream. Although I had a prior schedule, this in no way meant this would be the schedule going forward. As a distant memory, there was no “muscle” memory, and no clear it’s 7 o’clock I need to do… This habit no longer existed; the cues no longer hand meaning; the habit needed to be started from scratch again.

I had to renegotiation and revisit my previous choices and with myself. This included my priorities — are they still the same. There was this mental barrier growing, it was like an aversion. Additionally, I was never a fan of exercise — only walking produced any mood improvement, and most of this was through having a period of time for quiet reflection. I knew it was necessary, but I had to overcome myself — or more precisely the mental barrier which grows stronger and angrier every day.

The mental barrier

I do not know if this is just my own procrastination and laziness, or if this is a problem shared by others. Although I want change, and change is good for me; I appear to want to fight myself. I like the cosy comfort zone — but it is not good for me. But the comfort zone is now fighting back — and in this case winning.

Often the desire for change from a New Years resolution is good. It is a prompt for a change in actions, and once the initial inertia is overcome it can be made into a routine. The high of a New Years resolution and the desire for change provide the momentum and it was fairly easy to turn this into a routine. Before the short illness the routine was working, and it felt easy to follow.

But this was recovering from a break. Lacking the emotional drive and immediacy of a New Year’s resolutions, this is just “normal life”, there is no added incentive. I can see why people struggle to maintain New Year’s resolutions; immense discipline is required to overcome the effects of a short, enforced pauses. These are the trials of real life — the challenge is not the maintaining the habit, but overcoming the inertial mental barriers when the habit has been disrupted and has to be brought recovered.

Writing was even harder. My priorities recently were disrupted and I needed to focus my time elsewhere to complete other things. This led to a pause in writing for a number of months. Although I do like writing and it is something I know I need to do the pause destroyed the habit. The longer the pause went on the bigger the mental barrier. Even after the imposed priority changes were over, this still did not lead to the reconnection with the writing habit. The pause continued. I was avoiding returning to what I needed to do.

For instance, I started to look for other priorities instead of writing. I could anything, but write. I’ll come back to it after X. But after X came Y, and I’ll do it after Y, etc. It takes time to write and edit. Maybe there just is not enough time this week; it could be done next week. What happened next week? The same thing, it was a circle of excuses. After a while it became clear I was running away from it; I was prioritising other things to not do it. Why? It dawned on me that I was rationalising. Were these other things more important — did I need to complete this thing first? Did I really?

I was renegotiating the whole process again. Starting a habit again from scratch. Making a committed change from scratch. Not only that, I was convincing myself not to do it. As more time passed, more excuses came, more running away.

For me this mental barrier is real. Identification is not always easy and I found journaling helped. I could write down my thoughts, my priorities and my actions. It is said that writing is a method of thinking — it helps to illuminate a person’s logic, it illuminates what I do not understand. The thinking brings about a conscious review and forces someone to slow down, and to analytically work through a problem or an idea. It is the slowing down and rational thinking that helps to uncover the truth and meaning.

A journal is also a record and a sequential and chronological record; showing progression (either positively or negatively) and trends over time. These trends provide clues to my underlying thinking. I may think that I am doing the right thing prioritising one thing over another, but over time, they point to a picture of avoidance. Reflecting on my choices, I can ask — was this the most important thing I could have done, and what benefit would it bring me? Evidence sat in front of me, it was undisputable, but it required a significant amount of time to build. That was the challenge. Because taking this time time built a longer pause, it reinforced the behaviour that I was trying to overcome.

The mental barrier was so much stronger and angrier now — excuses became more complex and fear crept in. A creeping fear that is not initially noticed; the patterns and topics of the journaling uncovered it. Also, noting when I felt uncomfortable — which was sitting down and writing; trying to bribe myself into doing anything else. These were the initial signs and time made these stronger and stranger.

Journaling gave a rational view that the time taken to write became the driver for my excuses — it will take a while but you could do other things. I felt pushed for time and that I needed to finish quickly — too quickly. An article could not be achieved in this length of time and the quality will be poor. So why start? How could you complete it? Could you not accomplish something else in that time? It was a nagging feeling. This was the rational I was seeing every day in the journal.

But noticing this pattern had an even greater benefit when I reflected on the experience when I first started to write; there was a significant amount of uncomfortableness. Fear was all around me, and I attempted to put off writing and choosing a topic for such a long time. It was clear, this was exactly the same thing. Although the excuses to not do the writing were different, the underlying fear, the underlying reason not to escape the comfort zone was still there; afraid to fail, afraid to put myself out there, afraid of criticism, afraid to overcome the blank sheet of paper. Fear was like a black hole, that kept pulling me back in.

That is when I realised, my habit has gone and I am really, really scared. I need to figure out a way without the initial shove to start the writing habit again.

Rethink

Although the previous sections discussed how I found having a break can be bad for my habits, there are some positives. One of the benefits of a break, is it requires a review and renegotiation. Starting again is the blank sheet of paper — a fresh start. A chance to ask which habits serve me well and which should be discarded. Not tainted by what has always been done; a chance to choose what should be done. What should me priorities be?

It is interesting to note that this provides a lot a freedom which can lead to analysis paralysis and indecisiveness. However, I found that setting deadlines helped. Without being able to run away forever, decisions had to be made. Identifying and doing the most important things were crucial. But these are the most important things today, not when I started. I have done the habit for a while, and although it was a distant memory, there were things I learned about what did and did not work. For instance, some of the exercise did not appear to be providing much benefit. Should I change the regime or spend my time doing something else?

Although reconsidering my priorities was useful, the significant problem still exists — the habits have been broken and unlike New Years there is not the same level of pre-motivation and commitment. How can I find a way back to re-establish the habits I should keep?

My experience of overcoming the mental barrier

Unfortunately, I found this was about commitment, motivation and discipline. The break for the exercise period — it was abandoned. I rationalised it away. However, I did manage to guilt myself into a walking habit. This was a lot less intense and probably not as good for me as the previous endeavour. A question of commitment was aways lingering here. Did I just not want to do this, and how could I make myself want to do this? Was guilting myself into walking just an easy way of rationalising a compromised trade-off with myself so that I do not have to the more intense workout. It probably was, but I am still working on how to recommit with the workout — any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Writing was different. I had a plan and I knew where it fit into what I was trying to achieve. This is different to my workout plan — there was no real clear goal in what I was trying to achieve other than being healthy. Because writing was part of a larger strategy this may be a reason why writing stuck more than exercise. Moreover, I did enjoy the creative aspect of writing and I never really enjoyed working out. Maybe motivational aspects are another reason that led to one being maintained and the other abandoned.

Additional, writing was less time per day, and it could be boxed into a weekend rather than during the day. This made it a lot easier to schedule and maintain. I could choose a realistic production calendar that met my lifestyle and my time. Say an article a month or every other week. This made it easier to achieve regularly. Even the pause between articles could be managed knowing the routine was a little longer and the schedule was still being maintained.

There were a few other points that I noticed helped recover the habits:

1. Deciding to do this and committing to actually doing the work;
2. Guilting myself did work;
3. Prioritising it and not vacillating on the decision;
4. Appreciating what is involved in the habit and how frequent it needs to be done;
5. Being really clear on the task, frequency and standards;
6. Understanding how long it will take and allowing a little longer to do this so that time pressure is not an issue;
7. Planning it into the diary and schedule and give more than enough time do to this. Also do not putting this adjacent to items that are likely to overrun;
8. Start small and committing to doing a small amount regularly
9. Setting deadlines and sticking to them;
10. Getting easy habits started first and using this as a way of easing in other more challenging habits;
11. This is not about punishment, there needs to be interest and rewards like celebrations of milestones, to maintain commitment and motivation.

For instance, I paused journaling at the same time as writing articles. However, to maintaining a journal I only spend about 30 minutes a day writing it. This is amount of time is relatively easy to find, so the excuses for not journaling were not as strong as for writing an article. So, by focussing on the journaling habit, it was much easier to reconnect with. After a few days, the habit started to feel natural again. When the journaling habit was adopted, it was easier to get the larger writing habit adopted because I was writing a little each day. Starting with one small habit led to the second one being developed in time, which was much easier than starting multiple habits all at the same time.

Conclusion

I cannot say it was easy to return to the paused or inconsistent habits. Discipline is required and that cannot be ignored. It was scary and it was very easy to lose habits. Without the initial drivers and motivation to get started, getting the older habits back was hard.

However, it can be done. Maybe not for all habits, as I clear failed with a workout habit. But the writing habit appears to be coming back, and that commitment is really important here. Wanting to do the habit with some intrinsic motivation is necessary. But there are somethings I learnt that helped me reconnect with writing, and hopefully they are of some use to you. If they are, please leave a comment below.