habits as a practice: how to ease up on some all or nothing thinking
this year, a little bit on a whim, i decided to commit to morning pages - three pages of handwritten text in a notebook before (in theory) i start my day. i was looking for a practice that was easy, portable, and helped me bring a little bit of mindfulness into my days. so i got my notebook and today, i have fourteen little entries.
to be honest, it still feels really high stakes - like one cold or bad morning could knock me off my game and i would lose the habit and my goal for the year all at once! unlike the habit of say - brushing my teeth - this one definitely feels fragile and like it needs a lot of attention to get it right. it feels automatic to brush my teeth - it does NOT feel automatic to do my morning pages right now.
but, i know that there’s a life cycle of habits. there are some - like teeth brushing, that feel rock solid, but that that only comes after some time and practice. those are grown up habits - you trust them to be there, even if, you know, you fall asleep on the couch and stagger upstairs and forget to brush one day.
but then there are new habits - fledglings! - they’re just out of the nest and they need a lot of time and care until they feel like they can stand on their own. and when i work with clients, we often talk about adding in some purposeful care around these fledgling habits until you trust them to fly on their own a little bit more.
it’s really easy to just add habits to the list of things to do in a day - want to be more mindful? add a meditation habit! want to exercise more? add a morning workout habit! before long, your whole day can be just a list of habits, an endless to do list before the actual to do’s of your work day.
i encourage you, instead, to think about your habits like a practice - some are solid, some are strengthening, and some you can retire for the moment. the goal isn’t total completion every day of the whole list - the goal is to use the tools you need, when you need them, and to learn how to best work it in to your day and your life.
the difference can sound miniscule, but for me, it’s less about “did I do my morning pages, yes or no” and more about “what can i do to make my morning pages feel intentional so that i get the full benefits of that as a practice in a more holistic way?” my life will go on if i miss day 16, or 245, or the entire month of july - but every time i come back to my notebook to write down my thoughts and empty out my brain, that habit grows up just a little bit.
here is a habit inventory sheet i use with clients to help them see which habits are needing what kind of care - may it be useful to you this week as you dig into what things you’re growing in your own routines!
Making the most of the middle.
There is a natural excitement to the start of something new - a chance to do things differently, the hope and promise of a fresh start. And usually, by the end of a project, the excitement of the finish line can carry you through, even if you're tired. But how do you keep up your stamina in the middle? How do you push through the weeks or months when you just have to show up and do the work and there isn't anything structural to charge you up? Here are a few ideas about how to make the most of the middle of a project:
Add in something exciting: If you hit a five day streak of consistent work on your project - it's reward time! 20 day streak? Something bigger! Make your progress visible - put your word count on a post it that you can see, or fill in a sticker chart for every pom you finish! But celebrate the in between time with some extra festivity because if you don't make an explicit effort, nothing about the process will celebrate for you!
Build in accountability for the long stretches between submissions: Send your advisor an update weekly or biweekly so that your progress is communicated to everyone. Join a writing group and exchange early drafts with one another. But if your tendency is to hide out until something is due, building in some extra visibility can help you stay on track and work at a more consistent pace over longer stretches of time.
Work with your writing process or workflow, rather than against it: Do you need a lot of drafts (I do!) or do you like having lots of deadlines to structure your time? Work those things into your timetable - how long do you want to be revising? How much time do you need to do final proofreading? Will it help to schedule a week of slush time just in case life happens? Figure out what your workflow is, or what you need, and then work around that, rather than pretending that you don't need many drafts when you do, or that one deadline is enough when it isn't.
Figure out what you need to do to keep up the pace: If you can't be sustainable with your work habits in the middle of the project, away from the stress of deadlines, when can you? If you're likely to skip over things like movement, sleep, hobbies, or social time, schedule them in! Pay for an exercise class so you will feel like you're wasting money if you don't go. Make plans with friends and loved ones so you have accountability around leaving the house. Set regular work hours and keep to them! But if you can work through the middle without burning out, you're all the more likely to figure out how to push at the finish line without destroying yourself.
Grad school, and later academic, life is a lot about making yourself a structure to contain the work because it often isn't given to us. What do you need to thrive? What do you need to feel sustained and energized in the middle of work when you need it most? There's no office culture to tell you when to come into the office, or when to be on campus, or how to take breaks, so you have to empower yourself to create that culture. But if you take the time to do it, it makes the daily practice of working easier, and that makes the middle less of a slog and more of a routine!
Learning to write, again.
Pals, I used to be so good at writing. In grade school, in high school, in college, heck, even in my masters program, I was great at writing papers! So good, in fact that I could often put off my papers until the last minute (or at least, a far later minute than my teachers and professors intended), show up at my computer and have ideas just ready to be typed out! The words flew out of my fingers onto the page! The feedback was great! I was so good! But then, all of the sudden (it felt like), I was very bad at writing.
I wrote a little bit about how I came to see myself as a "bad writer" in this post, but today, I want to offer some practical advice for those who are finding themselves needing some encouragement around something hard that maybe once was easier.
Be patient with yourself. Frustration is a natural response to feeling like you aren't meeting a standard, and trying to will yourself to feel otherwise (or feel in any specific way, period!) is usually counterproductive.
Remember that you're raising your writing level, and that with growth comes growing pains. Anyone who has ever trained their body to do something physical, or practiced a skill, or rehearsed a performance, knows that the progress curve is not a smooth one. Number of hours put in does not necessarily equate to a smooth line of growth from point A to point B. It's okay to have to work on acquiring new skills - but it can feel uncomfortable, repetitive, and frustrating. Try thinking about it more like practice and less like perfection from the go.
Build in new networks of support. I am no longer a solitary writer, even though I used to be. Lots of people - from writing center staff, to writing groups, to friends, to family, as well as editors - read my writing now. That doesn't mean I'm a bad writer, that just means I am looking for feedback actively.
Which brings me to my next point: look for feedback actively. If you ask for feedback in a proactive way, from peers as well as supervisors, you can control that process (and sometimes even shape the kind of feedback you get!) Feeling in control of feedback usually feels better than waiting for your work to be torn apart by supervisors or peer reviewers or editors at some unknown point in the future.
Let yourself imagine writing as a skill you will always practice and improve on, rather than a goal to be "achieved". There is no magical checkpoint where academic writers suddenly cease having to work on their writing - not even tenure! You will always be working to make your writing more clear, more concise, more accurate, more engaging. Acknowledging that we will always have to keep working can help ease the "I was already good at this!" frustration.
It is hard to feel "bad" at something that used to get you a lot of praise and validation. It can be a massive blow to the ego (it definitely was to mine!) to feel like I was not good at something and to have to "go back to the basics." But viewing my writing as a craft has helped me to see that there is no good or bad writing; writing is a skill that we're always deepening, honing, and improving because it's the only way to get what you know out of your head and into the world.