A New Year

Out with the old, in with the new….

You may have heard this common expression for the new year. In our consumer economy, I think we are all pretty good with the “in with the new”. But how are you with the “out with the old”? Do you hold on to things, ideas, habits, philosophies, relationships?

Over the holidays my son and I were working on a jigsaw puzzle. As a friend once commented about puzzles- they are a good way to just talk about anything while you are lightly engaged in a project. As we were trying to figure out some tough distinguishable areas of sky pieces my son remarked, sometimes it takes a different perspective to figure out what goes together. He had just gotten up to get something to drink and when he sat down, he had started working on a different section. When he returned to the sky section he was able to fit in many pieces.

For this New Year’s Day, why not look upon this year with a different perspective? Instead of all new: new ideas, things, philosophies, relationships, we review the “old”? We evaluate what we have- is it necessary, helpful, supportive, useful, beautiful- and decide if it is it serving our current needs?

Are there things that you might want to evaluate before you blindly turn the page for the new year? Why not plan on evaluating those things during the month of January before embarking on a new idea, or purchasing a new item, or starting a whole new exercise regime.

The current psychology regarding changing and creating new habits is to create a new one before eliminating an old one. The thought is that once a new habit is established it is easier to drop the old. But for many, it is hard to even begin a new one because the old one gets in the way.

I wonder if even before any new steps, we take a good hard look at the old habit or things, or ideas/relationships/philosophies. We take the time to go through the old. We look at the old with fresh eyes and ask ourselves some questions: Why do we still have it? Is it too costly to continue- physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually? Is there anything about the old habit- physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually that is still good, useful and helpful? What would happen if I gave it away, sold it, discontinued using it? Would I miss the old if it were gone? Am I ready for the “new”?

Sure, it is nice to have everything new and to feel everything is fresh. There is nothing freer than to feel that January 1st has given us a new chapter in life -full of new opportunities and possibilities. But as anyone who has ever moved, most likely you end up bringing your old junk to the new home. New location, same stuff. Nothing really has changed except you might not know where the coffee mugs are located. Yet in the case of moving, when we really go through each box and not just hastily pack, we sometimes discover long lost meaningful items. Items that can be resurrected and used in our new location if only in a new and different way.

What about you? Do you have a New Year’s routine? Start something new? What about the old? Still around? Want it to be? What can you do this January to evaluate the old? How can you view your life differently this January? Need to see your relationships through the eyes of your friends? Need to “shop” your closet/house- finding long forgotten items and clothes that might be new again for you? Need to see what you are already doing in your exercise routine that can be augmented? Need to have a reflective time with God to determine your next steps with Him?

Maybe a new expression should be: evaluate the old before you embrace the new…

Slices of Joy

Recently I finished painting our living and dining rooms.  Before I repositioned the furniture I cleaned and waxed our wood floors.  As I put the wax on the floor and then wiped it off I was reminded of the Karate Kid movie and that classic scene where the karate master has his student wax his car.  The student is furious thinking he is not getting any lessons but rather is working for free.  It is only later does he realize the benefits of the wax on, wax off arm movements in his fluid ability to block attacks and his balance skills.

While I haven't learned karate, I have learned that in waxing whether it is for the car or on the floor, it doesn't take that much to provide protection and nourishment.  Just a thin layer will do.  In some ways it seems counterintuitive with our more is better mentality.   We think if a little will protect it, then a lot will be fantastic.  The thing is, if you slab on a thick layer, it takes more work to wipe it off and it doesn't protect any better.  The first layer against the wood is what gets absorbed.  Piling more layers on top will just be wasted when you wipe it off.  

Just a thin layer is all it takes to restore and replenish the patina on our car or floor. 

I started thinking about other thin barriers or layers that impact our lives:  The fragile veil of "normalcy" that separates us from sanity to insanity or the one little drink or pill that begins a tailspin of destruction.

If we think our lives are insignificant because we do not have "big, fancy, over the top" kind of lives, we need to remember that some of the thinnest things make all the difference.  Kevlar is a thin layer of material but it can mean the difference of life or death.  So too a condom.    

We can reframe our thinking into appreciating the thin, small, seemingly insignificant things in life.  According to Chade-Meng Tan in his book, Joy on Demand we can successfully change our mindset by practicing "thin slices of joy". 

Usually these events are unremarkable: a bite of food, the sensation of stepping from a hot room to an air-conditioned room, the moment of connection in receiving a text from an old friend. Although they last two or three seconds, the moments add up, and the more you notice joy, the more you will experience joy, Tan argues. “Thin slices of joy occur in life everywhere… and once you start noticing it, something happens, you find it’s always there. Joy becomes something you can count on.” That’s because you’re familiarizing the mind with joy, he explains.

Turns out that our brain's basal ganglion is the area where we control habits.  The more skilled we become at a particular habit, the easier it becomes to repeat it. We need to have a trigger, routine and a reward to embed this habit into our brain so that we do not have to spend much cognitive ability in doing it.  In the case for slices of joy our trigger is the pleasurable moment, the routine is the observation of it and the reward is the continual building of joy. 

With practicing slices of joy we are training our brains to notice small things. The more we notice, the more our lives and brains are filled with positive emotions.  We are prepared for whatever the day brings because we have practiced the art of noticing slices of joy. 

What about you?  Have you ever noticed small slices of joy?  What are some things that put a smile on your face?  Things that I have noticed just this morning:  the red streaks of the rising sun filtered through our neighbor's statuesque pine tree, a robin hopping along our garden edge looking for worms, the first sip of espresso, the flutter of clothing drying on the line, the dog with her face turned into the wind catching a whiff of some transient smell, the intricate details of a garden flower.   If you can, try and find three slices of joy today.  Each day build on that experience.  Over time it can become your way of viewing the world.  

And that, is significant. 

Changing Habits

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine there was an interesting article about habits.  There is a study published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal suggesting that it might be better to give up your bad habits all at once rather than one a time.  The subjects were college students.  Half were left to continue their lifestyle practice while the other half were subjected to a strict regiment of exercise, mindfulness, stress reduction techniques and lectures regarding sleep habits and nutrition.  After six weeks the students subjected to the lifestyle overhaul reported feeling happier and calmer, they were fitter and more flexible and brain scans indicated that they were more focused.  Following the students for another six weeks but not doing any intervention, showed that those who had the initial lifestyle overhaul were still functioning better even though they were not required to demonstrate any of the new changes.

There are many questions to this study- Is the sample size (N=31) significant to infer any generalizations? How can you control for everything when dealing with active college students (dormitory arrangements, financial stress for cost (working while attending), social relationships (dating), type of course work?  However, it does initiate an interesting dialogue. 

My experience in coaching others is that it is more sustainable to work on one thing at a time and to let that one thing become the norm so that there are less items on which to work. Kind of like laying down layers of a good habit foundation.  When a new habit is formed, developed and ingrained in one's lifestyle practice it then becomes harder to default back to the old ways. When multiple habits change at the same time, I would suggest that they are not as deeply rooted into someone's psyche and consequently would be easier to uproot. If stressors affect a person's life, the habits that are still in the seedling stage can easily be trampled. 

I think this study does raise the point that when one changes one habit it does impact another. I have heard other coaches say that when they notice someone getting their finances in order, their weight also seems to be managed better and visa versa.  The correlation among habits stems from the fact that once we decide to work on a habit, we are committing to a process of discipline.  Part of the word discipline means: "the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior.."  As in many things in life, once we see how one type of behavior is effective, we can transpose that process into other areas. 

What about you?  Have you ever learned new behavior or practiced a different lifestyle habit?  What did that look like?  Did you change by one behavior at a time or did you totally revamp your lifestyle?  If you have always wanted to change some unhealthy habits, what do you think you could do to achieve that?  Do you need more information on the best way to go about the change?  Do you first need to name and recognize the problem?  Do you need more discipline in your life?  

Ways to incorporate change into your life:

1) Evaluate how things are currently going for you.  On a scale of 1-10 (best), how would your rate your total wellness (body, mind, spirit)?

2) Identify the areas that are lower on the scale or the ones on which you want to work.

3) Set a goal for yourself.  Break that goal down into smaller doable parts. If it takes a couple of smaller goals to add up to the bigger one, so much the better.  I would certainly advise that if one was trying to lose weight (one of the most frequently stated goals for people).  It would be better to say that you wanted to lose 10 pounds in a year (approximately 1 pound a month) and keep it off for that year than to say you want to lose 5 pounds by the summer time. 

4) Find an "accountability" partner- someone who can encourage you to get back on track when you might have those stressors chipping away at your newly developing habit. 

5) Reevaluate your habit.  Once it is incorporated into your lifestyle, revisit and give yourself pats on your back for learning and sticking to something new.  Recognizing what you have accomplished in the past can help encourage you to work on some other type of habit in the future. 

(One thing that I am working on is learning  that I do not have to kill myself trying to get things done in one day.  For example, I used to almost physically cripple myself in getting our gardens mulched and cleaned for the season. I would scurry around pulling weeds, edging sides and throwing mulch down that I would never enjoy the chore much less the beauty of the garden.   It was something that needed to get done so that I could move on to something else.  Plus I would complain bitterly.

My goal is to learn to enjoy the process, the garden and to just work on it in little chunks of time.  For some that would be a no brainer, but for me, to put away the garden tools and leave the garden with items still to be done, was and is, a big learning curve.  Feeling that I had to have it "finished" was stressing me to the point that every time I would look at our backyard I would get anxious.  

So, I am giving myself only an hour or two to work on the yard and then giving myself permission to walk away until the next time.  I have reframed gardening as a process and an activity rather than a once and done project.  By doing so I am enjoying myself and the garden as it unfolds.  And, my son knows that I am trying to do smaller chunks of time in the garden and so reminds me that it is time to stop.  I am hopeful that my new habit is going to stick and that I can practice this "continuation of activity" in other areas: no longer will I have to wear myself out in trying to get everything done at once.)