Things that are simple to do don't require skill but persistence. Just decide. Just do it. It’s not rocket science.
But we resist. It’s much easier to get a handle on learning something new, or buying something. These activities are clear and straightforward. We can find someone to teach us or someplace to buy or acquire an object.
What’s harder to come by is persistence. You can’t buy it in a store and you can’t get someone else to do it for you. You don’t need to learn it because you already know how: do that thing over and over and over.
What you can do is find ways to make it easier to be persistent and to reinforce whatever new behaviors you’d like to have in your life; the ones you know you should be doing but have trouble with. Make things easier by:
- Not changing more than one thing at a time
- Posting reminders wherever you need them
- Tack new activities onto old ones that are already habits
- Rewarding yourself for every bit of progress
- Realizing that even if you backslide you’re still making progress as long as you don’t quit
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Thanks, Claire, I would be lost without my recurring Outlook reminders. They help with birthdays, finances and simple things like reminding me to take out the trash on Thursday nights!
The benefit to me is that I don't have to keep these routine maintenance tasks in my long or short term memory, freeing my brain's RAM for more important things like reading other people's blog postings!
hope we can catch each other by phone soon!
warmly,
Jessica
Posted by: Jessica Duquette | August 16, 2006 9:23 AM | Permalink to Comment