Re Human — Week 15 Reflections — Day 105
We are what we repeatedly do. I’m reinventing myself by improving in 15 areas at a time.
This process post is part of my Re Human project.
Note: today’s reflection was longer than usual, in a mind-story-like format. It’s for me. I’ve found writing a great way to explore and develop my thoughts. So if you choose to read it, bear with me (actually, my mind).
This week I traveled with my family for a Winter holiday vacation.
It would have been easy to not bring my soccer ball “because we came to a winter location”. Or not have ordered a small piano keyboard before the trip.
At the beginning of this Re Human project, I wasn’t planning on writing every day.
I thought it wasn’t going to be that useful.
I thought it could even be annoying for whoever was already following me. I felt an article from the same person every day would be too much.
But I’ve discovered that this simple act of writing and sharing about my process is glue.
It’s the glue that ties together all the activities throughout my day, every day.
These process sharing posts have been like streaks, incredible consistency generators (because I’ve been naming the posts with the number of the day, creating a streak).
And they’ve also been process-motivation generators.
I know that at the end of the day, I’m going to be writing. So I act, the way I want to describe what happened during my day. I find myself acting as “the hero” I want to be.
If I’m coming close to not doing one of my activities, my mind flies to that time in the future where I’m writing what happened during the day.
“Is that a strong enough excuse?”, I find my future self asking myself.
The answer, so far, has always been no. My mind always comes up with a way through, motivation coming from my future self, a stronger reason to persevere, be resourceful, be courageous, and be gritty.
This glue has allowed me to stick to my process, every day, for the past 105 days — there have been no exceptions, except for one day.
That day was a Sunday. Sundays I write weekly reflections instead of my “day process”. So there was one Sunday where, because I knew I would be writing a reflection instead of a “day process” post, I decided I would take that opportunity to experiment with something I know is very valuable — rest. All athletes and top performers in all fields know the value of rest.
That Sunday I did some of the activities and I didn’t do others. In the afternoon, when I was writing my reflection for that day, it felt weird.
It wasn’t a busy Sunday. I still “had enough time to go do the remaining activities”. I had to reflect hard on what mattered most to me.
The story of not missing a single day of “doing all the re human activities I set out to do”? The ego story.
Or the experimenter mindset. The flexibility to experiment with new approaches to things, even things that everyone — even myself— assume are the right way of doing things. I have always valued perseverance, grit, tenacity, discipline. But I also had this curiosity for rest, flexibility, refreshing.
The motivation for this Re Human project in the first place comes from curiosity. From experimenting. I’ve called it an experiment more than I’ve called it a project.
So I decided to experiment with the experiment. And I learned a ton!
For some reason I have kept playing the grit, tenacity, perseverant version of the story (doesn’t have to be ego) — the not missing a single day version. And it has been great. I’ve learned so much about what’s possible. I’ve always considered myself a perseverant, resourceful, gritty person, and I’ve grown into an even grittier, more perseverant, more resourceful person.
I’d highly recommend anyone curious about this to try it for themselves — setting a project/system/habit, and writing & posting publicly about the process, every day.
I’ve been reflecting for the new year (btw yesterday I posted how I go about my yearly reflections!):
As part of what I’ve reflected, I want to keep writing and posting about every day. I think Sundays are a great time to incorporate rest + flexibility, as a default.
But I’ve also reflected that I don’t want this glue to keep me too tight. If there’s a situation where I can clearly determine that it’s truly worse to stick to the glue, I’m going to unstick myself. Opportunity cost is real.
I’ll act, consciously, freely, and courageously. Not only because I know I’m going to be writing how I’m acting at the end of the day, but because I am free, conscious, and courageous.
We’ll see what happens. It’s an experiment :).
Read the next day’s post. Read the previous day’s post.
Read the previous week’s post.
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Thank You.
