About a decade ago I found out the “21 days to build a habit” myth was built on a misinterpretation of text (perhaps intentional just to make money) and I suddenly felt free of the “rules” people set for creating habits. It’s been wonderful but still very difficult since I suck at recognizing my own patterns over time unless I’m regularly documenting, which is a habit and therefore another thing I have had trouble keeping up with consistently. I’ve been obsessed with what goes into forming a routine or habit for most of my life because for most of my life, it’s been a real struggle to stick to anything.
I became a fan of the Routines & Ruts podcast at the start of the pandemic and when I found out there was going to be a book, I purchased it immediately. While I was reading it, I took notes on what I already knew (prior to reading) and felt validated finding in other perspectives, and took notes on what struck me as an a-ha moment.
Be flexible
– Everyone’s life is an experiment. Try different things and do pilots. Learn from what doesn’t work.
– Having flexible approaches actually gives you more control, even though it can sometimes feel like the best way to have control is to narrow your focus.
– Don’t resist the flow! Your cycles will be different from everyone’s so adopt lessons learned and apply them to your life – don’t feel too bad if you try something and it doesn’t work. Find your cycles and work with them.
– Day to day life wobbles. Instead of seeking “overall balance,” seek to balance yourself while you wobble.
Prioritize
– Focus on creativity, solutions, and ideas, not on productivity. Stop feeling pressured to “seem” busy.
– My life is about experiencing and understanding – sometimes I do stuff, adventure, explore. Sometimes I stay inside. Respect the ebb and flow of output vs input.
– Prioritize the experience, not the result. You want to walk more to get your blood pressure down, but put your mind on the joy of walking: being out, witnessing the world, feeling nature on your skin and appreciating color palettes, etc.
– It doesn’t matter where you start, all that matters is that you start. It also doesn’t matter if you didn’t do it for a while as long as you do it again.
– If you can’t find time, create it. Things happen only when you do them… PUT YOUR BRAIN TO WORK AND KEEP TRYING.
Let go
– Don’t look at clocks: time only matters if you have an appointment/thing to get to and at work. Outside of that, take care to be intentional about how you experience life, rather than worrying about how long something is taking.
– Free yourself from the idea that you can control an outcome by making a decision.
– Everyone is different, there’s no point in comparing yourself or your progress. (Even in my case when you spent the first few decades of your life depressed so ended up in may ways behind all of your peers.)
– Cry all the time. It helps to feel your feelings and process things – otherwise you get paralyzed and start to ignore other stuff, like routines you are trying to build.
Rest and respect your pace
– I am a low energy person and I’ll never have a lot of high energy consistently: I will always need long periods of rest to balance the activity. Be slow, casual, reflective, and seasonal if that is what you are.
– Give yourself grace and consider your context. You have a tremor 24/7, sometimes it takes you longer to do things than it does for other people. You’re sensitive, sometimes you get overwhelmed quickly. (and so on)
– Honor your personal pace – everyone walks alone sometimes. You will not always align with others.
– Pause to refresh. A break can get the momentum going again!
Small steps
– Choices and decisions and responsibilities can be very difficult, but they can also be freedom. Often the fact that you get to choose is a freedom.
– Kindness is connection.
– Interests begets interest – curiosity adds shimmer to your life (this may be a direct quote, but I didn’t write it as one in my notes)
– You don’t have to overhaul your entire life to enact change. Control what you put attention to.
– Ordinary things are small and good (!!!)
My biggest revelation reading this book was that I’ve been seeking flow my entire life before I even knew what it was. I read about it in my early 30s in relation to a “Creativity for Introverts” zine series I was working on and even at that time didn’t fully understand that’s what my life has been about.
It’s very exciting to find such alignment with the thoughts of so many people. Sometimes all I need is the validation of one other person who “gets it,” even if we don’t know each other at all. (This is a big part of the reason why I love zines.)
Something funny that popped out at me was the idea that tension can foster creativity, so you should embrace being lazy as part of the process. Bouncing between laziness and motivation can provide that tension. It made me laugh because I always noticed creativity came from tension, but my “action” on it was to be depressed forever.
I can already tell this is going to be one of those books I read every few years to refresh myself on stuff I’ve already learned, but which hasn’t stuck quite yet.