“Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Building habits has never been a strengh of mine. I find it difficult to practice consistently. Not that I do not like the activity itself, but it is quite hard for me to proactively spare time and devotion to that specific activity. I just forget it, or something else grabs my attention away from doing that.
It is my second day of writing in 2024. I almost forgot to write today. It is 11:30 PM while writing this piece, and I had to push myself to sit in front of the laptop and press the keys on the keyboard. It is not easy. It will be probably even harder on certain days.
The importance of creating this consistency is not about turning only writing into a habit. There are some many other things I want to learn, but they are either always on idle or are very inefficient. For instance, I am learning Spanish since half a year. I take it easy, I only get 2-3 hours of classes a week. I do not learn grammar or vocabulary specifically. Instead I focus on speaking as much as possible, and doing it 2-3 times a week, consistently. Throughout the process I have logged more than 600 words and I practice them too… Or at least I try. That’s where the issue is. I do not practice the vocabulary consistenly. I want to do a daily practice of at least X words (i.e. 5 words), but somehow I lose the consistency on certain days, which then, like a snowball effect, results into the further delays.
Nowadays my mind is flying around the thought of learning piano. I love music and I can play guitar a little bit. I am pretty sure that for me to learn it on my own, I need a dedicated plan and more importantly a dedicated and recurring practice time. I do not know how many hours a day is needed, but I can imagine something like 30minutes a day can be a good start. But I am just concerned that one day I will forget it or won’t have time, and that’ll be the starting of the end.
There are some things I do consistently since a long time though. I do intermittent fasting since years now (some cheat days or weeks have happened as well). I read at least an article every day. I do daily 10k steps walking since one year (my 12 months average is 11k).
There is a recipe about turning new activities into a habit. Integrating those activities into my daily routine helps a lot. For instance, I do my 1:1 calls while walking. I am also listening to a podcast while walking, which means combining walking with another activity that I like. I am having my spanish class either during lunch time, since I am not having lunch, or at the end of my work day. They usually blend in to my daily meetings, and then it easy to just do it. I am not good at implementing it for everything do.
Consistency requires a proactive commitment of a discipline, which is effortful and might not be so much fun. It’s what it is though. Consistency is the only keyword for getting better at things.