as is well known in many of my circles, i love potato chips. i eat a lot of them, i think they’re great, i have definite opinions on brands, and flavors.
i’ve been known to eat potato chips for the “first draft” of lunch. sometimes i go downstairs to eat and i’m so overwhelmed by the choices and the work it would take to, you know, make something, that i just eat chips.
i call it the first draft of lunch because it invariably causes me to be hungry and cranky and thirsty in 45 minutes, so i have to go downstairs and deal with myself and i have even less capacity to do it.
however, in the last few months, i have added a step in my morning start up routine, where i list three or four things i could have for lunch in my planner. it doesn’t work 100% of the time (morning me is very optimistic about how excited i’ll be about salads) but it makes it so much less overwhelming to have something to choose from, instead of having to just invent lunch every day.
and here in lies today’s self care lesson:
it’s easier to do it if it’s easy.
put your workout or work clothes by the bed
block twitter or instagram
sleep with your phone out of arm’s reach so that you can’t roll over and scroll
meal prep, or have a list of things you can easily make with what you have on hand
have a list of things you could do to be good to your body
set alarms for meals and to remind you to drink water
schedule things and put them in your calendar to automatically repeat so you don’t have to remember every month or week
have a hard off time at night so you don’t have to decide when you’re done working
leave notes about where you want to start working the next day
have set or usual days off or “appointment days” so you know when you’re free to make plans or go to the doctor
if something works really well, make a note and try it again
and if you’re trying to build a new habit, make it as easy as you can - you have to nurture the new things until they’re ready to fly free, aka, you have enough data to believe it really does help.