Progress on the 90 Day Belly Dance Challenge: One weekish. "Celebrate the damned goal!"

[parasitegirl]

Progress on the 90 Day Belly Dance Challenge:

I've done 8 days out bellydance...out of 10. I usually exceeded my self-set minimum when I did dance. It's time to reflect on those two days I didn't dance.

You will have those days. You can sit and tell yourself it's because you're weak... or you can be honest and smart. Creating new habits that stick is hard. Willpower can be built up, bit by bit, but research in general shows it's daily and finite creature. Once it runs away you'd better not try to make the hard choices, you'd better hope you've built smart habits that you can coast on.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, for my new job I'm reading a lot about habit building. So is my boss/co-worker and we're both thinking about it and boiling it down to points we want to look more deeply into so we can work it into our classroom routines and help students learn to become better students. I'm currently reading The Power of Habit.)

I've decided to make a change in how I do the challenge.

Andalee has made a chart of day, date, activity, time (how long) and reflection.

http://bellydanceatanysize.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/90-Day-Belly-Dance-Challenge-Tracker.pdf

I have realised that I need to do something different.

For me I think this is what I need to do: Keep track of when I do my minimum (I'm doing 20 but I think Andalee's suggestion of 5 might be better when building up the habit) but not time myself except to note that I have fulfilled my minimum time. This is so I can meet that goal and celebrate that goal being met. (GOLD STAR ON MY CALENDAR!)

If I log in more time, yay me...but I can build up to doing more time once as a minimum once i've figure out how best to meet my minimum goal and create a reliable pattern. Right now I'm just figuring out how I start making doing dance a daily part of my life. Period. Meeting your minimum shouldn't feel like "you're just meeting your minimum." That makes it less special and doesn't help you build up a belief in yourself.

At the end of a dance practice, or at the end of a day I have not practiced, write myself a note about when and how I plan to make time for dance the following day, being specific about how I am going to make that time and what my back-up plan is if that first time is not do-able. Write about what I want to get accomplished during my minimum time and what upcoming dance events/classes I need to prepare for and what I need to do.

Im doing the "Next day plan" on my chalkboard in my dance space.

You might notice that I really don't want to reflect much about what I got done each day, I just want to celebrate that I got X amount of time to DO DANCE in just like I was hoping to. I want to reward myself enough to make this a daily thing I don't feel anxiety around.

I don't want to trigger my judging brain...because my judgy brain will make me anxious about what I'm doing. The more I worry about "doing the dance time right" the more anxiety I will feel about the dance time and the more willpower it will take. If I'm letting my self-judging brain into the days that I do meet my goal I bet my judgy-brain will have HUGE NASTY parties with banners that say "What is wrong with you?!?! Don't you WANT IT bad enough?" on days I don't meet my goal.

I just want to figure out how to make sure I am taking time to work on dance every day for these first 90 days.

I will continue to journal this process, and gold star it, but my focus on the first 90 days will be on what works to get me into my dance space and do my minimum each day.

After 90 days...I will set my next goal about what my minimum is for my daily dance time, how I want to use it, if I want to record how I use it, and if I want to integrate reflection into it more.

Comments

[tajidancer.livejournal.com]

thanks always for the inspiration. I am waiting for my new anti-anxiety med ( Buspar) to not make me sleepy. Hopefully by next week---i will be doing more. I am not crabby/snappy but i am annoyed at all my messes around( student belts started and in limbo in a few places around). The lexapro---got through the nausea ( w/ my own ginger tea----lots of fresh ginger---this was the only thing that worked). But then i had a couple of days of DEPRESSION!!! (wanting to stay in bed) ----so on to the next drug. My sister uses buspar( she takes it all at night---but it's been so long that she can't remember how her progression of adjustment was---and she is on 2 other meds also) ----so her experience is not totally helpful. And for me---if the buspar doesn't work-----then i have to find something else??? yuck. My physician has a psychiatrist in the plan -----if i have to try another drug----i'll work on getting in to him/her. Thanks for listening--cause i know you know how frustrating it can be. Good luck at the new job and forming new habits!!!!!

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

I like this notion of writing yourself a note for the next day. I may try it.

[tajidancer.livejournal.com]

i got internet info from some depression drug blogs( a strange experience but some kernels of good info)----i cut the dose down of the buspar and doing much better for 2 days.