unjinxing myself

After writing my Plan post about how wonderfully it was going and how easy I was finding it, I haven't managed to get a star all week. I thought I was back on track, starting Friday, but then today my housemate had a cookie-decorating party and I ate too much. I also realised that I'd said my star challenge was to email someone every day, which I haven't done, so really I never got off zero stars. At least I've still been working. I averaged over 6 hours a day again this week, and I have some cool results!

Despite the setbacks this week, I think I agree with Dr Crazy that good things do come easily. Saying that feels like I'm being dismissive of how difficult I found these things not so long ago and suggesting that the same things should be easy for everyone. I think it's a matter of figuring out what I'm ready to change and finding the right strategy to take, though. Last year, doing 30 minutes of work a day felt like a big step, but was also relatively easy. Not all the star challenges felt so easy (and those that didn't were definitely first to fall by the wayside), but they've led up to even bigger steps this year. Simple strategies like switching from counting how many hours I'd worked, to watching what percentage of the time I spent working has made some of these changes a lot easier.

I've been meaning to post for a while about this article on how to make resolutions you'll keep. The point of the article is that the reason resolutions fail is that you value some aspect or effect of the old behaviour more than the expected benefit of the new one.

There’s always a reason in what you do, and in whatever you fail to do as well.
Most often, it’s linked to your values. They aren’t all equal: the more
important values trump the weaker ones. Concern for your health may be one of
your values, but if wanting to fit in with your friends ranks higher, you’ll
continue to smoke, or drink too much, or spend too much, if that’s what it takes
to stay part of the gang. Make all the resolutions you wish. Until you change
the relative ranking of your values, nothing in your behavior will to alter for
long.

I value being able to eat dinner as soon as I get home a lot more than eating good food, but by cooking all my meals in one go for the week, I get to have both. Not eliminating junk food entirely means I get to keep eating treats, without making myself sick. I need to find a solution for my all-or-nothing thinking when I slip up, though.

I've been trying to figure out why my resolutions to keep in touch with friends and family keep failing, since that is the area I'm struggling most to change. If I knew why I'm so resistant to replying to emails (and commenting on the many blogs I have open in tabs), I think I could find a solution that would make those things seem easier, too. Clearly, there's something I value a lot more than talking to my friends, even though I really do want real relationships with them. I have some hypotheses, but none specific enough to design experiments around yet.

In any case, I will be back to getting stars this week. I'll be travelling later in the week so I'm not sure what will happen then. I'm not going to let that stop me from making the first half of the week go well, though.