Habit Forming

Have you ever started a new habit or routine, felt great about your consistency and then suddenly find yourself having skipped that behaviour/activity/practice for an extended period? I finally just picked up my ukulele again this week after several weeks of not practicing. I can’t say with certainty what initially threw me out of my new routine (the ukulele was a Christmas gift), but I suddenly found myself not having practiced for three weeks. 

Each week, I added “Practice Ukulele 15 minutes” to my daily habits list, encouraged by the first step of setting the goal. And then for several weeks, those check mark spots stayed blank. The first week I chalked up to a busy and hectic seven days, work had been draining, and we had some different projects happening around the house. But then, each evening that passed, I would think about practicing and began to dismiss the habit. I started feeling discouraged and then avoided the practice because I felt like I had already lost too much time. It felt like I was going to be starting from scratch again, and that was unappealing.

My approach with learning the ukulele has been somewhere between Behavioural Activation and SMART Goals. 

Behavioural Activation is something I speak about a lot in therapy. Essentially the idea is that “doing things” can, in fact, “activate” us and help us to feel better. You identify healthy or pleasurable activities that you want to add to your life, ideally planning them around times when you would typically engage in unhealthy or undesirable behaviours. For me, this has meant scheduling practice around the evenings when I would mindlessly scroll the internet.

SMART Goals have also been on my mind while learning this new skill. This acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely goals. This acronym helps to break down goals in a way that makes them tangible, manageable and more likely to be accomplished. 

Now, full disclosure. Since starting to write this post, more weeks have passed, and I have still not stuck with my daily practice of the ukulele. I have adjusted my goals and have been troubleshooting my approach to learning. I have a revised plan to get me back on track that will also include some guidance from my musically talented best friend, tapping into my value of quality time and connection.

I am focused on not getting discouraged or hard on myself, which I recognize is more likely to make me give up entirely. If you’re out there trying to set a new habit, learn a new skill or be more activated in your day-to-day life, pat yourself on the back for where you’ve come and give yourself some grace for the gap to where you want to be.

May 14, 2021