daily habits

Get 1% better everyday

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote Anon

As a little lady I’ve always known that ‘small steps’ led to reaching your destination, it may sometimes take a little longer but the victory is all the sweeter for it.

This weekend we took our son to a Rugby festival and small steps made all the difference to the team, they left winning all of their matches…the game play wasn’t superior, there wasn’t any new players but they made a few small changes…they spoke to each other during play, they used each others talents to serve the team and they came home winning every match.

Habits are crucial to reaching your goals, to living the life you truly want to. Small incremental moment of progress will always get you to your target and you often find any set backs are smaller too.

Take a moment to think about what you’d like to achieve. If it helps, write it down. From now until the end of time your job is to make that goal a reality, try not to give yourselves a time frame – having it happen is better than not. Many people think they fail because they lack resilience or loose focus. They usually don’t reach the goal because they don’t build habits to support them and when they do regress or decline, they internally berate themselves. If we feed ourselves negativity, we can’t expect the results to be positive.

So this week, speak kindly to yourself. You truly are your best friend. Look at the goal you wrote down for yourself and be that person a little more tomorrow. If you want to be someone that runs regularly, then create some habits that support that goal; leave your running clothes out for ease, set some nonnegotiable time in your calendar but most importantly be kind to yourself. Let’s be more specific: your goal is to run daily. If you are feeling fragile, exhausted or depleted from life you could still go out for a walk with your trainers on, it may be that the fresh air motivates you and you run the last two minutes home – you still ran that day and even if you didn’t, you’re nearer to your goal if you run ‘more’ days than you do now, so missing one here and there isn’t the end of the line. You don’t have to run more the next day, you don’t have to tell yourself you’ve failed. Kindness and daily habits should be your priority.

Some goals are hard to see how you can make small steps, if this is the case then I recommend you spending some time brainstorming all the things you’ll be able to do ‘one day’ then instead of the huge goal, work towards one of the ‘one days’ – any progress is success, even if you’re 1% closer.

Sometimes the yoga is just being there

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote Anon

Back in February of this year I used my blog to make myself accountable, the post was about making time to meditate and how I planned to do so. You can peek back by clicking the blue title below.

Breath. believe. release. receive

The fabulous news is it worked. I have meditated daily without any breaks and even worked around distractions and prioritised when the daily routine got thrown off path. It still makes me feel amazing and starts a bleak cloudy day on a sunbeam vibe. Most days I meditate for forty five minutes.

Therefore it makes sense that my next absolute love is prioritised. Yoga. This bendy and restorative process has been in my life for over twenty years. It began when a wonderful lady in my staff room at school invited me to join the class she went to. The class was in an abandoned church outside Romford and the parking was a nightmare. However, as soon as my body hit the mat and I looked up to the incredible ceiling with the stained glass windows pushing rainbow lights across our torsos…I was hooked and the worlds problems dispersed.

Since then I’ve done a little of everything; classes, on my own, YouTube clips, 30 day yoga challenges, day events and retreats, private instructors…however, in the last couple of years my mat love has died. The motivation to set up and get my flow on just hasn’t been there. I’ve noticed that when I do unsurprisingly my flexibility has reduced and whilst yoga should never be a competitive choice….my soul feels like it dies a little with each ‘I use to be able to do that’.

Yesterday I realise I have two choices, to let it go and accept how it is or to do something about it. Deep down I know I’ll feel better for prioritising it, for making time and for strengthening my body.

So let’s go all in! Daily practise is now a thing…well, starting today. I’m currently sat on my yoga mat in the garden because it’s sunny and in the UK that’s a reason to move the mat outside.

Inspired by this quote I am going to be on my mat daily. Minimally, much like how I began the meditation practise, I’m going to do a five minute sun or moon salutation daily or three stretches, everything else is a plus.

Below are a couple of other things I’m going to try to make my daily commitment to my body’s health and well-being a priority. I’m sharing them in case you too have something similar you would like you make a daily practise

Leave it out: I’m going to leave my equipment out. Over the years I’ve acquired a lot of yoga pieces; yoga chair, blocks, straps and I even had a yoga wheel at one point…however that clutter will drive me mad, so I’m going to just start with my mat. Simple and no excuse. I’m hoping that eventually this will become a more permanent edition to our home and I’ll cultivate a little corner somewhere. I’ve heard that people that reluctantly struggle to get to the gym find it useful to back their gym back the night before or have clothing at hand.

Kind words: I’m going to need to reduce my attitude around what I can do (could do) and attempt to stay in the moment and be kind to myself. The world is hard enough without berating myself. Yoga practise is all about being connected and in the moment, if I can stop the negative chatter, the practice will take care of itself.

Day by day: To achieve my target of daily practise, I’ll work out the night before when I’m going to make time the next day. That way I’ll wake with a clear intention . I would guess in the next couple of weeks I’ll find a natural flow, but my work diary and life commits vary and without this little plan up my sleeve I’ll go to bed without having achieved my goal, exhausted from the day and frustrated with myself.

Ops I did it again: If I do miss a day, I don’t need to ‘make it up’ the next day or give up, or wait until the next week to begin. I haven’t failed. I’m human and being flawed is often part of the process. Should I miss a day I’ll be disappointed but also understand the reason why. The crucial part is getting back on the mat daily after that.

That’s if…that’s the plan. Wish me luck and if you’re also trying to increase daily habits and reduce negative thoughts / actions then join me on my new journey.