On Habits, or, More of My Profound Wisdom

What with all the new year's resolutions that have been buzzing around, I've been thinking about habits, and how to form them. I am, of course, embarking on my own (previously unannounced) Program of Reform: namely, I am striving--for the eighth or ninth time--to start practicing yoga at home, regularly. There are too few yoga studios around here, offering too few classes and located too far away, for me to count on classes to get my yoga in (anyway, a year and a half of living here has proven that that is not feasible in this location). In the past, I've sort of half-thought that, since I figured I wouldn't be at Field for all that much longer, there was no real point in developing sustainable habits adapted to this location. Well, it's been a year and a half, and that kind of thinking isn't doing much for me. So the plan is this: 20 minutes of yoga--whatever I want to do--per day, unless I engage in some other fitness activity (swimming or soccer). So far, so good; in fact, I've been having a hard time sticking to only 20 minutes. But we'll see what happens when classes start next week.

Anyway, the point is that this has me thinking--not for the first time--about how to form habits. Unsurprisingly, I'm far from perfect on this score, but I'm a fairly willful person and I've had some success in getting myself to do new, potentially unpleasant things on a regular basis. My two major categories of examples on this score are yoga (going to classes, anyway) and fiction writing. I've written two novels, one when I was 23 and the other when I was 30; they're both quite likely bad and will probably never be published, but having written them makes me happy, and I'm proud of the accomplishment, as they really did require some pretty serious discipline and general unpleasantness. I also went, in my 20s, from a fairly lackadaisical exercise schedule to serious vinyasa yoga classes 3x/week, despite all the usual reluctance and malingering, and stuck to that schedule for several years (until I moved to Field. I still miss my studio so terribly!) Doing these things has led me to develop a pretty reliable set of rules for getting myself into gear when it comes to forming new habits. And so, while these may not be useful to anyone else, I offer my reflections--some of which are, I'm sure, obvious and hackneyed.

But what else is a blog for, other than to offer hackneyed and narcissistic reflections on topics of general interest?

Anyway. Here goes.

1. Make your goal reasonable. This is probably the most obvious and hackneyed of them all, but it's the one that I break the most. I seriously convince myself that I will make such changes to my life as, for example, starting to get up at 4:00 am for an hour of yoga followed by 45 minutes of meditation. Um. Yeah, I haven't done that once. So planning to spend two hours a day at the gym or write ten pages every morning before class are pretty much dooming yourself to failure. We all know this.

2. Focus on form, not content. It is better to do something lame than to do nothing at all. So, for example, when I wrote my second novel, I committed to writing 1000 words a day, but the words themselves could be totally stupid and it wouldn't matter. Knowing this was a help when I felt "uninspired," because I would tell myself that I could just describe a room for half a page or write a purely functional action sequence (this happened, then this happened, etc.). In practice, I usually got into the swing of things pretty quickly, but sometimes I did have to resort to a kind of "summary" paragraph. The point, though, isn't for every single day to be brilliant, but to get into the habit. If the habit is what matters, then the details of what you're producing don't. And the habit really is what matters, typically.

Similarly, when I committed to going to a particular yoga class every week, there were certainly days when I was "tired" or "out of sorts" (or just whiny). So I would tell myself that I would go, but I didn't have to try very hard or do much and I could sit out in child's pose for half the class if I wanted to. Invariably, once I was there, I worked as hard as I ever did, so all the whininess was just that--whininess.

The point, I think, is to get out of your own way. There are a billion content-related reasons for not doing something (I don't have any ideas, my leg hurts, I'm distracted and can't put my all into it today). But form-wise, there isn't much. Just show up and see what happens. If nothing happens, at least you showed up--and that's all you've asked of yourself, so good for you!

3. Make it non-negotiable. This is, for me, the most important thing.

When I started my first novel, I was 23, living in a new city. I was unemployed, running out of money, and plagued with great pretensions of being A Writer. (Someday. Not yet.) And one day I got thoroughly fed up with myself and said, OK, I'm unemployed, I have only one friend in this city and nothing to do all day, and I never write a goddamn thing. So here's the deal: four pages per day for 100 days, or I never get to pretend that I'm going to be A Writer again.

I was very stern with myself. It was quite intimidating.

So, I started. And then I got a (very boring) 9-5 job.

But I'd written about 20 pages, and I wasn't about to give this up; the idea I'd had for the novel interested me (although I was a bit embarrassed about it--it was genre fiction! So not what I wanted to be known for!). And I did the only thing I could: I started getting up at 6 am to write as much as I could of my 4 pages before work.

This was not in tune with my natural rhythms. But I reminded myself that it was just for a few months, and if I didn't get up early I'd have to write when I got home and was tired, so I got my ass up every frigging day, and I wrote the damn thing. In fact, I exceeded my limit and wrote more than 500 pages of melodramatic, self-indulgent, dearly beloved prose. (I really do love this novel. I do not think that it is particularly good, and I don't really like showing it to others. But I love it.)

And when I started going to yoga every Monday at 5:45 pm and Thursday at 6 and Saturday at 3, I did something similar. It was non-negotiable. I wasn't allowed to talk myself out of it. So I'd walk to class with a whole monologue about how I was tired and so forth and shouldn't I just stay home?, but my body had already left, and my mind could chatter away as much as it wanted--it wasn't running the show. I scheduled things around classes. It was a priority--an immovable fixture in my week. There was no "I'll go on Tuesday's class instead"; Tuesday's class was dead to me. It was Monday, period.

The thing is, once you introduce exceptions, every day becomes an exception. Be stern. No exceptions. (Unless, of course, something truly extraordinary happens. It's a little like your late-paper policy....)

4. Spend a lot of time thinking about how awesome you are. This is extremely important for me. Positive reinforcement is terrific. Again, focus on form, not content; if you're just developing the habit, it doesn't matter that you ran slowly and only for half a mile. You ran; therefore, you rock. It also helps me to have someone to whom I can brag routinely. Boyfriends are good for this; parents can work well, too. Or just a friend who has a high tolerance for your absurdities.

5. It might take a few tries for the habit to "take." As I said above, this is not the first time that I've tried to establish a regular home practice. But that's okay. As my old yoga teacher used to say, it's all practice--and the more you practice making a positive change in your life, the more likely you are to succeed down the line. If you can't stick to something, think about what didn't work and then try again. My problem with the home yoga practice in the past may have been trying to practice a certain way or for a certain length of time every day; an hour is too much, and a particular DVD gets boring after a while. Make it fluid. Find what works for you.


That's it for me, I think. I did a pretty soft yoga practice today--Womanly Issues and all that--but hey, I did it, and now I'm finishing up this post and a little glass of scotch because hell y'all, I spent all friggin' day on my comp syllabus. Damn.

My Biggest Accomplishment of the Week

In yoga class this morning, I got both feet behind my head.

Whooo!

Enlightenment, here I come!!

A Big Scare!

So I was in yoga tonight. At first, I wasn't really feeling it. I was kind of annoyed with a friend of mine who unfairly takes advantage of another friend of mine. I was distracted and, thus, irritable.

My mat was towards the back of the room, near a wall. About 6 inches from the end of my mat was a big stack of cushions.

Early in the class--in the first downward dog, maybe--I noticed what looked like a bit of fluff sticking to one of the cushions. It looked kind of like the tip of a dustball. I was surprised that there would be dustballs in there--it's a carpeted room, after all--but whatever.

Class proceeded. We began the sun salutations.

And then, in maybe the third downward dog, I looked at the fluff. And: It had moved. It was protruding further from between the mats. It no longer looked like fluff. It looked like it had long, bunchy legs, all sticking out. It looked like: A Really Big Bug.

Okay, I thougt. It could be a spider. Spiders are all right. Or it could be (and this made me shudder--not outwardly; the room was at 95 degrees--but still) one of those awful huge leggy centipede things that live around here.

I hate those huge leggy centipede things.

They freak me out.

Once, there was one in my room, and I wanted to get rid of it but couldn't stand killing it. So I put a cup over it and left it for two days. When I picked up the cup, there was nothing there but a little pile of dust.

Aaaaagh.

My eyes were riveted on this thing. In every downward dog, it was my sole focus, my drishti. The sweat on my ankles felt like creepy little giant centipede legs. Even in poses where I wasn't supposed to look in that direction, like reverse triangle, I somehow found a reason to glance back there.

What would happen, I wondered, when we got to shavasana? When I had to lie there, all passive and vulnerable, just inches away from the disgusting centipede thing? What if it got into someone's shoe?

Oh, it was terrible.

And then we did something that brought us to the ends of our mats. I looked down at my wee nemesis. And...um...okay, it was a little tuft of stitching sticking out of the side of a cushion.

Annnyway. On the upside, I was so relieved that I actually turned my attention back to class. And I'd completely forgotten about my aggravating friend.

Some Big Changes 'Round These Parts

Ahh, March. The temperature has gone up more than 30 degrees since yesterday, and, in the spirit of the new season (right? right??? winter's not coming back, is it?????), I've decided to make some Changes.

First off: No more cable. I had it disconnected last night. It was about time, really; I've been stealing wireless from somewhere (presumably the boys downstairs) since October, and my TV service gave me no extra channels--meaning that I was effectively paying $50 for network TV. $50 a month for a handful of Will and Grace reruns is an expense that I can no longer justify. Particularly as the end of the year--and my last foreseeable paycheck--draws near.

I do have an antenna, and I'll probably give that a try later on. But would a life sans television be so bad? Although it would be terrible to miss out on the rest of America's Next Top Model, a deeply problematic show to which I am nonetheless addicted.

Second: I sorted through the stacks and scraps of papers adorning my desk area. That's not especially exciting, I know, but it was satisfying all the same.

Third: I went back to yoga. After a week and a half of no real exercise, my body was feeling thick and sluggish. I normally attend at least two--often three--classes a week, and missing it for so long reminded me of how much I love it. I might write about yoga some more later. It's corny, I know, but yoga really is such a tremendously important and beneficial part of my life. Today's class felt great. My usual teacher wasn't there, but the sub was a guy I've had before and whom I like a lot. He's a small, kind man whose goatee and bright little eyes give him a benignly simian aspect. Although I tried to go easy today, moving my body felt so good that I, well, didn't. But to no ill effect, so I think that I made the right choice.

And finally: I will go to the bank, on Monday, to finally close my stupid savings account with the 0.000001% interest rate and transfer the money to my vastly superior savings account (4.5% interest rate). And to get some of those coin sleeve thingies. I need to roll some coins.

With these resolutions under my belt, perhaps I can get back to work. Perhaps, some day soon, I'll finish one of the books I started in more optimistic times.

I am a yoga bitch

So I went to a yoga class on Thursday night, and I just wasn't feeling especially...agreeable. There was no particular reason for my bad mood; maybe it was the cold, or the fact that I hadn't been very productive that day, or something. I don't know: I was grouchy. Often, I find that yoga is great for getting me over bad moods, and by the end of Thursday's class I did feel much better. But during the whole setting-up period and the first twenty minutes or so of the class, my inner monologue was, well, not very nice. I actually began composing a list of things that piss me off in yoga classes:

1. Really crowded studios.
2. People who deliberately position their mats to take up more than one space. (We'd all like extra room, but the rest of us know how to behave. Come on. Be civilized.)
3. People who won't stagger their mats, even when they have the opportunity, so you're whacking your arms against theirs all night.
4. People who do stagger their mats, but then for some inexplicable reason don't stand at the top of the mat, but rather position themselves so that they're right up next to you anyway.
5. People who moan, loudly, often, for no reason. Sometimes, okay, you're straining, and a moan just happens. No problem. But try to keep it under control. Seriously. It's distracting.
6. Laughing, and laughing, and laughing, at every moderately amusing thing the instructor says.
7. Having my mat stepped on by people who are not me.
8. People who gather up lots of extra pillows, and straps, and blocks, and then pile them up next to their mats in such a way that they inhibit their neighbor's (i.e., my) movement.

(Okay, I enjoyed that.)

It's funny, though, how all my petty, territorial reactions come so much to the fore during yoga--precisely the activity that's supposed to get you beyond all of that. Sometimes I feel ashamed of myself, actually: can't I get over myself, for once? Can't I be nice?

But here's the more favorable way of looking at it that I'm trying to sell myself on. I can't just stop myself from being petty and territorial and an occasional raging bitch. What I can do is notice when I'm caught up in these absurd thoughts. I mean, really. None of the stuff mentioned above affects me in any signifcant way: if the room is crowded, you adjust the postures slightly to accomodate the people around you. That's it. I hope that, by just being aware of my inner rants, I can gradually quit reacting to them emotionally.

In any event, the whole sordid scenario distracts me entirely from the job market, the conference paper I need to write, the book review I'm revising, etc. And that is definitely a good thing.