Reset and Progress
Part of the reason my writing slowed down this year is because I've been trying to find a better balance. Believe it or not, a contributing factor to this was a coaching session that I had the privilege to attend. What the coach was trying to promote was the ability for me to leave room for serendipity in your life. The intention was to make me understand that not everything can be planned and that I should leave room for curiosity. Unfortunately, I don't think I understood the message as well as I thought I should have. I ended up pulling back too much. I went from a good level of intensity to almost no intensity at all!
Whenever I get excited about a new endeavor or a new habit, I tend to go all-in and try to maintain a perfect streak. I either maintain the same level of intensity or I eventually burn out and need to reset. It took me some time, but I'm happy I learned that about myself.
Other times though, life happens! You get sick, you have to travel, or you have to take care of loved ones and that can put you off balance from your day-to-day routine. Part of the challenge in the past has been lack of forgiving myself for not maintaining a perfect streak and also not finding the right routine to reset.
I've recently stumbled upon this video and thought I would take the chance to outline a framework for resetting that could help me in moments when life has other plans. I can give myself up to a week to restart, focusing on very few things every day. That will build up to restoring a healthy routine. Sadly, in the past, I would even let months go by. Blasphemy!
Something else that can contribute to burnout is the inability to see progress. Especially when you are cultivating new interests or learning something new. If you don't see yourself making progress or getting better, it can be demotivating to the point that you might as well stop. Knowing that, I decided to find ways to really enjoy these new learning paths and still find a way to notice the progress.
So similarly to what I've learned from Ultralearning is that you should spend 10% of your time figuring out a plan. Depending on what you're trying to learn, there are very different ways to go about it. Measuring progress in something like writing is very different from measuring progress in something like learning a new language. It's important that you find ways to look back and see the improvements you've made compared to where you were six months prior or a year prior.
The time commitment also plays a role in your expectations. Personally, I started off with trying to write a full blog post every six weeks and realized that the amount of time I could dedicate to it was not going to make this a sustainable habit. I ended up pulling back a lot and that's ok! Use these experiences to learn something about yourself. Adapt and iterate.
The few factors that generally play a role are in setting yourself up for success when you want to learn something and you have a busy life:
- Have a plan
- Understand how much time you can dedicate to your activity
- Set reasonable expectations based on the above
- Write down specific goals
Thoughts
Don't fall into the trap of having a perfect streak. Forgive yourself when you fail, and most importantly, make yourself resilient. Define and iterate on a reset routine or framework that can help you get back on track when you are out of balance. Don't let obsession over progress or stats burn you out, and follow the few steps above to have reasonable progress with reasonable expectations.
Keeping momentum is more important than having large improvements in short amounts of time that require you to overextend yourself. Find something that can compound daily or that you can keep up with comfortably, and that you also enjoy. Set yourself up for success, the sky is the limit!