It’s the pandemic, everyone’s at home; paunches are dropping, the four walls are becoming the four friends and the brain is caught in a rut. For most parts of the week, my life is put on replay and as for the hours left beyond the mundane; the mind races to do something different, something more challenging, something more fun or anything to break free from this misery.

In one such endeavor, I set out to do something I normally wouldn’t do and used this time to create a new habit. I read a lot of articles, watched quite a few videos, spent hours figuring out the best book on habits creation to buy and then again reading about the author… This went on in a loop as the internet is filled with information and honestly this can get overwhelming!

I began to see a pattern; (If by now you can relate to the problems; please subscribe to my newsletter, we may be alike and the problems are probably relatable 🙂 ) most of my time was spent in perfecting the understanding of how to start rather than actually doing what I wanted to do.

I put a stop to this! Woke up one day, put on a pair of shoes and clocked a 20 minutes run; thus began day 1 of n. I did no planning, thought very little and just went out for that run. To be honest, to have done that was just ineffably liberating. Sometimes, we tend to overthink and plan way too much resulting in the activity being just more daunting than it already is. I wanted to be healthier and that was enough motivation for me to start on that DAY 1. It’s been 7 days now, and I managed to keep myself spirited and finished that 20 minute run every day since.

So what was it like every day? And how much did I have to really push myself to do it every day?

Every day I thought very little about the activity, I had no end game no set limits and definitely not having the 7 day challenge in mind helped me complete the 7 days I guess? Our mind and brain is complicated and hands down the hardest to decipher. There is no predicting the ripple effects of our thoughts and intentions seeded into it on the action that results. Some may argue otherwise, but it seems to me that; seldom we’d have to trick ourselves into doing what we don’t necessarily enjoy doing and especially the ones that don’t give immediate rewards. I could go on about the dopamine rush and other chemical plays in our body, but I’m going to refrain from doing that.

I simply thought nothing!

Every day, I used 20 minutes of my free time to go out for a run. I didn’t fixate on the time, a few days it was in the morning and a few days late in the evening as well. What mattered was that, I actually went out for that run. Isn’t that what really matters? In my extensive read on the subject matter, it was advised to fix up on the time! To sort of be prepared for it before the hour on the clock arrived. It’s worked even otherwise and I feel creating too much order while you’re trying to get into something new could be impeding.

The goal should be to just do it; it need not be even every day, but to just get about doing it. Sooner or later, discipline builds and hopefully you would have created a habit down the road.

Every day after day one, I only thought; ‘I ran yesterday; it felt good, so why not step out for a short run? Luckily that sort of got me going and I was not stressed to complete any goal or achieve any milestone. This is the point I’m trying to make. Sometimes, it should be about enjoying the experience and the aftermath; nothing else. Sooner or later, the by-product would be a habit and you’d be a creature of habits.

Let’s try to extrapolate this to other interests and passion? To your interests and passion? I would recommend all of you to try this out. Think very little, identify what you’d like to start and just start. Subconsciously keep track of the days (I know it contradicts what I said; but I did talk about tricking the mind 😉 ).

Try something new in this free time the universe has gifted us with and let’s use this as an experiment to see if my experience and results can actually be replicated!

Ideas?

1. A run?
2. Meditate?
3. Draw?
4. Learn a new word everyday?
5. Learn or play an instrument?
6. Drink a liter of water everyday?

I could go on, but I assume you get the point! Lets come out of this pandemic a better version of ourselves.

Summary

1. Is there something new you’ve wanted to try?
2. Think little and start maybe?
3. Don’t stress yourself to be too disciplined about it; but just try and enjoy the whole experience?
4. You should have already started 🙂

I am in no way trying to device an algorithm for creating habits, all I’m doing is sharing my humble 7 day journey and my two cents. I hope you give this a try and take part in this random experiment.

Please let me know down in the comments section on your views and if you found it useful in any way!!

Thanks for the read!

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