Drama Makes It Harder

When you’re faced with something you don’t want to do, how do you handle it?  

For me, historically, there has been a lot of drama involved.  Drama to the point that even though I am over 40 years old, I could still hear myself whining like a 2 year old, “I don’t waaanntt to.”

It wasn’t until I learned how to manage my own drama that I started to see a change in executing the habits I wanted to create in my life.  

In fact, in the last 45 days, I have added a series of habits for my health.  The whole cycle takes more than 2 hours and includes red light therapy, visualization, supplements, yoga, non-fiction reading, flossing, walking, and the big daddy of them all, a cold plunge.  Some days, the habits are easy.  Other days the habits are hard.  

I mean who wants to climb in a 50 degree bathtub at 7am?

The truth is, I do.  I have decided for various reasons, that each of these habits is important for my physical, mental, or emotional health.  And, if I am committed to myself, and the life I want to create for myself, then I am committed to these habits.

So, you might be wondering, how did I install these habits into the busy life of a mom of two teenagers, who runs two businesses, and has multiple other projects in the works?  Basically, I cut the crap….call me no drama mama if you want.

Here’s my no drama habit planner…

#1 - Document what it is that you really want and why.  Think about the nuances of what you want, not just the highlights and make sure you tell yourself the truth of why.  These answers will get you through the tough times, so don’t gloss over it.

#2 - Document all the obstacles you think you will encounter.  Write it all down…not enough time, I don’t like to be cold, I struggle to wake up in the morning, I have work to do, I’ll feel guilty spending time on myself…whatever you can think of, get it all out in the open.

#3 - Draft a sample plan for the new habit(s).  In a perfect scenario, what might your day look like if you implemented this habit.  What else would need to be adjusted, how would your schedule change, what does that do to your flow of activities, what order could you put things in to make it easier?  Put it on paper in pencil, move things around and make adjustments that account for all of your previously mentioned obstacles.

#4 - With a curious mind, give it a try.  No drama.  Just do the next thing on the list. Don’t overthink or worry about what’s next.  See what on the sample plan works, and what doesn’t.  Make notes about adjustments that could be made and challenges you ran into.  Don’t make it mean something about you if everything doesn’t work perfectly.  Stay curious as you attempt to create a new sample plan with your new information. 

#5 - Try again.  Adjust.  Try again.

What I’ve learned as I’ve implemented this habit planning process is that most of the time I was trying to do hard things and making it mean something about me personally when it didn’t work the first time.  But that’s just drama.  Maybe it just means it's not the right order, I need to go to bed earlier, or it’s not the right playlist for those activities.

From this I’ve created one of my newest mantras, “Through trial and error, I will figure out how to make this work.”  And that approach, the no drama approach, has made all the difference.

What habits are you wanting to create?  How can simple habits, repeated over time help you achieve your goals?  

Next week in the Make It Happen series we will be discussing more about Repeated Habits, not only how to create new habit routines, but also how to stack habits to be more efficient, and even hacks to get you started on your habit routine before you even realize you’ve started.  Want to hear more, register at www.purawell.com/2024 to join me live on Monday January 22nd at 3pm MST, or to get the recording of the whole series to watch whenever it works for you.