Day 4: One Habit at a Time

It’s day 4 of the self discipline challenge. If you’re new, you can read what’s it all about here. Don’t worry, it’s not too late to jump in at any point. You’ll need the ebook 21 Days to a More Disciplined Life.

Today we’re focusing on implementing one habit at a time instead of trying to change everything all at once. Today’s challenge was both the easiest and hardest one so far.

The easy part was sitting down and making a list of all the habits I want to change in my life. I definitely didn’t suffer from writer’s block there! At least knowing that I have it all written down is something, and hopefully I don’t have to cloud my brain worrying about it all.

The hard part is overcoming the urge to just change everything all at once! I think one of the biggest sources of problems in my life has come from my all or nothing mentality. I’m either doing things perfectly or it’s not even worth trying. I’m working to reverse that attitude. I bet I’m not the only one who suffers from the wake-up-perfect-on-Monday delusion.

I really need to internalize this statement from the book:

It’s better to focus on and master only three habits each year that actually stick, than to repeatedly try to develop 30 different habits all at the same time and end up overwhelmed, frustrated, and back to where you started.

That is just so true!

The assignment for today was to choose one of those habits to work on for the next 17 days. Choosing just one was tough for me. This is something that I really thought I had down earlier in the year, but fell of the wagon and never got back on. (Does anyone see a recurring theme here? I’m pretty good at jumping on wagons, but delay horribly in getting back on when I fall off.) Anyway, my habit is going to be to avoid the snooze button! I so love my snooze button and I absolutely, positively abhor getting up before my body is ready. However, the truth is, it’s pretty much just a painful to drag myself out of bed after 30 minutes of snoozing that it would be when my alarm first goes off. Also, lately I’ve been absolutely cutting my morning time down to the wire. I snooze until 6:10am, shower, dry my hair, realize I have to leave IN FIVE MINUTES, so I throw on some clothes, throw my make up in my purse, and dash out the door without even taking the time to pack my lunch or eat breakfast!

So, how was your day 4? What habit are you going to work on?