An Effective Remedy for the Stubborn - Trying Out Elastic Habits by Stephen Guise

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For quite some time, waking up early in the morning to do some exercise has been on mind. Many months later, it still remains what it is - just an idea that never came to be, not at all put into action. I've been wondering why I couldn't find the motivation to enable me to achieve this and often find myself asking the question why; unable to provide an answer. Each morning, my alarm wakes me up at the time I set the night before and my instant reaction is a constant resistance to succumb to it. I often tell myself that I don't really need to wake up that early. And so, I hit snooze, pull my blanket closer and enjoy some few more minutes to doze. Most mornings are cozy after all, why would I trade this for the world? I deserved to enjoy this hygge.

Until one late evening, while I was scrolling through my Kindle App, I came across this book by an author whose name didn't ring a bell. His name's Stephen Guise and he wrote a book about Elastic Habits. Surprisingly, I felt a spark of curiosity beaming from within me so I gave this book a chance to be part of my Kindle library. I'm currently reading the book now and so far to my pleasant surprise, its concepts are endearing and curiously enticing; as though granting me an invitation to test it out.

The main idea is that habits don't need to be big, grand and intimidating and they necessarily don't need to be done at specific places and hours. Rather, habits can be flexible. Small, quick wins are emphasized within the book in order to achieve momentum we need to move forward, thus, serving as motivation for us to increase our habits' level, amount, and frequency. Ultimately, it meant to allow us with freedom and bargaining - not the usual rigid and hard to follow habits - to succeed and finally achieve our goals.

I'm excited to test it out! I don't particularly desire to form a habit of waking up at 5:30 am each day. Instead, I wanted to form habits around exercising, being consistent in writing, and reading.

Below are the three habits I wanted to develop using the principles of elastic habits:

Mini Habits:

  1. Do pilates for 10 minutes; daily - or  - reach 5,000 steps; daily.
  2. Write down one paragraph; daily.
  3. Read five pages; daily.

Plus Habits:
  1. Do pilates for 30 minutes; daily - or - reach 7,000 steps; daily.
  2. Write down one blog post; weekly.
  3. Read one chapter; daily.

Elite Habits:
  1. Do pilates for 1 hour; daily - or - reach 10,000 steps; daily.
  2. Write down two blog posts; weekly.
  3. Read three chapters; daily.


So, let's see if this works; and so the adventure begins!
I'll update again after a month.

Love,
Mary Jedde


Location: Singapore
The author of this blog is plain and simple. She thinks mostly of the usual things - life, love, beauty. She enjoys the basic necessities like food, warmth, blankets, and music. She gets thrilled with the idea of an adventure but doesn't really like to go on one, unless her spontaneity kicks in. She's got a fire in her belly most days, but enjoys the leisure of being in bed at the same time. Odd. Weird. Plain. Simple. Mary Jedde. An old soul, a lifelong learner, and a flourishing human being.

Comments

  1. LuiDecember 26, 2019 at 10:32 PM

    I'm going to need myself to hook up with this book. Hahaha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mary JeddeJune 15, 2020 at 12:08 PM

      Two habits I managed to successfully form: Reading books consistently and writing my blog every week. I didn't follow the book per se, but somehow what really worked with me is that I decided to do these activities because I enjoy doing them.

      In retrospect, this is an interesting take on habit forming, so it's worth reading. :-)

      Delete

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