Commit to Calm Day 1

Why is it so hard to change behavior? Read this post to find out what I learned while working on my new habits for calm.

Today is Day 1 of my commitment, and also fittingly New Year’s Day. I was up late last night, didn’t sleep well, and my stomach hurts (damn you dairy!). Thus, it would be really easy to not work on a new habit today. But as I shared with you here, I printed a very official looking document in which I promised myself I would make my health my priority. I committed to building new habits to increase calm in my life and even hung the document on the fridge. No backing out now!

The new year is 2021! Time to change behavior and work on those new habits!
It’s a new year! Time for some new habits!

Thankfully, I only committed myself to 10 minutes a day. It’s really difficult to make excuses for why I can’t find 10 minutes to care for myself. Plus, I wrote down the reasons why I committed to calm. One of those motivations was feeling healthy – both mind and body. I could really use some of that today.

“Ten minutes of stretching is nothing and will make me feel better,” I told myself. And know something? I was right. Stretching relieved tension in my shoulders and tightness in my legs. My dog, Scooby, even joined in the fun by inserting himself in my hip stretch.

My dog, Scooby, is working on new habits also!
Scooby wants to stretch too!

Successful habit change

By the end of the ten minutes, I was wondering why it was a mental struggle to begin with. So, I did some research into why it’s hard to change behavior. I came across some very fitting research by James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. In this excerpt from his book, Clear discusses why we fail to do the things we say we are going to do.

To summarize the social psychology research, we need to address four laws of habit change to make a habit stick. To change behavior, we have to make the habit:

  1. Obvious (our cue)
  2. Attractive (our craving)
  3. Easy (our response)
  4. Satisfying (our reward)

“The key to creating good habits and breaking bad ones is to understand these fundamental laws and how to alter them to your specifications. Every goal is doomed to fail if it goes against the grain of human nature.”

James Clear

Changing habits with my Commitment to Calm

Thus, seeing my Commitment to Calm on the fridge this morning was a good cue. It reminded me this was my priority. My desire to feel better was my craving, making the act of stretching attractive. I perceived ten minutes of doing something good for my body (and mind!) to be relatively easy. Finally, the stretching truly was satisfying, or a decent reward for not much effort.

Looks like I’m on the right path. One day down, twenty-nine to go!

How about you? What habits are you working on changing? Leave me a comment!

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