Day 141 & Changes to Burpee Habit

Day 141 Record Keeping SRHI = 77
Day 109 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 82
Day 55 Burpee SRHI= 73 (1x2)
Day 155 Eating SRHI = 60  
Great sleep, bleary wakeup.

Changes to Burpee Habit

I had always envisioned my burpee habit to slowly morph into a more robust bodyweight training regiment - something like Convict Conditioning or the 666 program (now moving here) - progressive programs that get you into doing crazy things like full bridges, one armed pullups, etc. I feel that these programs maximize several things that I want in my life - body ability, agility, and self containment. In my job, I travel constantly, and I need a workout for any place. It also lays the groundwork for more interesting skills further down the line - gymnastics, martial arts, breakdancing, and parkour.

In the last week or so I’ve been slowly increasing reps and oddly enough getting to 7 or 8 reps a day - a relatively low number -  got me really sore. And that’s good, but it’s been a lingering soreness, which to me suggests that I need to set up some alternating regiment in order to allow for muscle repair. 

So I’m going to start alternating days. one day of burpees and one day of another exercise. I’m choosing a plank progression and bridges in order to work on my core and flexibility. 

I’ll make the change to the habit tomorrow - from now on it would be more appropriately labeled Bodyweight Training.

Day 140 & Contemplating a New Habit

Day 140 Record Keeping SRHI = 78
Day 108 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 82
Day 54 Burpee SRHI= 73 (1x8)
Day 154 Eating SRHI = 56  
Ok sleep, great wakeup.

Contemplating a New Habit

Three of my habits are at fully formed levels. I’m very surprised that Burpees have come so far so fast, but despite my expectations they have. So it’s time for a new habit. But what should I do?

I’ve thought about adding more to previous habits and monitoring them - adding additional meditations, resurrecting continual meditation, or adding additional bodyweight exercises to my burpees.

I’ve also considered adding a daily writing habit with an added caveat. 750 words was great, but I want to have greater output in my work, so I’d do something like 200 words of publishable material to start off. 

Or I could continue on with my original list and do something like a habit for flexibility - doing something like back bends everyday - or flossing.

I find myself excited about the options - a much better state of being than being resigned to trudge some more. I think this feeling will become greater and greater as the project continues, and I think it’s important to record that change in psychology.

I’m still mulling this over, but in taking all this in I want to step back and really analyze the correct choice for my next habit. Like with my previous ones, I want it to have the maximum impact on my life - a support upon which to build other habits.

Day 139 End of Low Carb Flu & Depression

Day 139 Record Keeping SRHI = 74
Day 107 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 78
Day 53 Burpee SRHI= 70 (1x8)
Day 153 Eating SRHI = 47  
Good sleep, bleary wakeup. Depressed last night, depressed in the morning.

End of Low Carb Flu

I think the “flu” symptoms disappeared yesterday or the day before. I made an effort to drink more fluids, eat more fat, and drink broth. I guess I sort’ve second guess myself with things like this. The first time I went through this it lasted almost an entire week, so I’ve been worried that perhaps my diet isn’t as strict. 

My intake of cheese is more - I just got a Provoletera plate from my visit to Argentina - in the past I haven’t notice much of an adverse reaction to cheese, but I’m tapering that down now. 

In the first week I’ve wanted to go to the local bar and have a beer and some of their snacks. I quit that after a few days, but I’ve been drinking a bit more than my daily allotment of two glasses of wine a night. In fact, I haven’t been drinking wine - the wine here is a bit expensive and it’s often easier to grab beer - but it’s something I’m going to change. 

I’m not going insane with drinking or anything, but I’d like to drink more water, and it’s easier to control with wine. I think that, along with my depression, it and my control of food has more to do with this place in my life.

I’ve just got back from fast paced travels, and it’s cold and silent here - I don’t really have many friends. I’m also moving to Barcelona in a month, and the change - the potential to do a lot there, is scary. 

I feel caught in a place where I don’t have enough time to do much here, scared about moving and the potential of failing to do more there, and the drudgery of this project. I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much, and because of that I self sabotage. I feel like all the success I had in the beginning of the eating project - the weight shed, the tightening of 6 notches in my belt - that that progress isn’t happening anymore.

If I breathe and take a step back, I have to understand that this is the same feeling I felt during danger zones in other habits. That dangerous cocktail of antsy-ness, depression, impatience, frustration, and hopelessness that heralded giving up on so many projects in the past.

And that’s exactly the sign I need to keep trudging on.

Day 138 & Burpee Habit Update

Day 138 Record Keeping SRHI = 77
Day 106 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 81
Day 52 Burpee SRHI= 70 (1x8)
Day 152 Eating SRHI = 46  
Good sleep, ok wakeup. Depressed last night.

Burpee Habit Update

My burpee habit today is an SRHI of 70. Of course I need to see if this stabilizes, but this at least nominally makes it a habit. 

And this is surprising. From reading Lally’s experiments, I expected anything related to working out to take a significant amount of time. If I remember correctly, she concluded by extending her graph that such things would take about 250 days to achieve habituation.

I’d be curious to see what the differences were with her experiment and what I’m doing. I’m also curious to see if my burpee habit is indeed at a habituation level or not. 

My theory is that it’s not. The numbers in this habit have been remarkably consistent - and even while traveling I only missed doing them once, maybe twice. So in effect, there was no “danger zone.”

So either the danger zone is coming, or by dropping my exercise into a BJ Fogg approved Tinyhabit (my travel protocol was to do only 2 reps) I somehow skirted the danger zone. That is really exciting.

Also I’m wondering if simply doing the habit in changing circumstances sped up the lifecycle of the habit, something I feel is highly plausible. It certainly seemed to supercharge my fixed meditation and my record keeping. Though for these it might have also been the fact they’re just older habits.

These are interesting to note, because it provides at least some data when it comes to SRHI hacking - the ideal is that this project provides a more  streamlined approach to habit formation.

Day 135 & The Low Carb Flu

Day 135 Record Keeping SRHI = 78
Day 103 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 79
Day 49 Burpee SRHI= 68 (1x7)
Day 149 Eating SRHI = 43  
Great sleep, tired wakeup. 

The Low Carb Flu

I haven’t really described what I do for “eating right” - and a part of that is lack of thoroughness, and another part of that is that it’s a tangent to this project. Whatever consists of you “eating right” it’s the habit that’s the point. 

For me I do primal, the diet advocated by Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple - basically a high fat, high vegetable, moderate protein diet that omits processed carbs like sugars, pastas, and breads. 

Why? It has worked dramatically for one of my closest friends and, probably more important, I feel fantastic when I’m on the wagon with it. I’m clear headed, I don’t have a afternoon slump, I have control over my eating, and I lose weight without really trying. It’s also quite forgiving - I cheat once or twice a week. In the few months I’ve been on it, I’ve lost 6 belt holes on a belt that barely fit me. All without really exercising.

This is a far cry from the more standard bodybuilder’s diet that consisted of high amounts of complex cards, low fat, and protein - a diet I have found to be a real pain to stick to.

The gist of all this today is that since I cheated quite a bit during my travels, I’m on the process of getting back to it. I didn’t really gain weight on  my trip, but yesterday and today I’ve felt a slump of exhaustion and lack of clarity of thought - what people call the “low carb flu.” 

Even though I feel miserable this is great - it means something is happening. I experienced this when I first started the diet, so it’s not a surprise, and it only lasts about a week. Only this time I’d like to try to combat it - several websites I’ve suggested drinking more water, eating more fat, and drinking things like broths. 

I just made a batch of broth last night, so let the broth-drinking begin!

Day 134 & First Glimmer of Superhabits

Day 134 Record Keeping SRHI = 80
Day 102 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 79
Day 48 Burpee SRHI= 67 (1x7)
Day 148 Eating SRHI = 40  
Great sleep, great wake up. Yesterday was the first day fully back on the eating habit.

First Glimmer of Superhabits

In a previous post I talked about what I dubbed “superhabits” - ones that are really unshakeable, and ones that might correspond to SRHI numbers in the 80s. Since I’ve been back both record keeping and fixed meditation have showed increases in SRHI numbers, and today my record keeping is at 80 - the first habit that has gotten a score this high. In addition my fixed meditation is almost there at a score of 79.

Is it stable - will it continue to be this high consistently? Is this due to the length of time, or because I have tempered the habit through the chaotic circumstances of travel? These are questions I’d like to answer.

Day 130 & Back from Travels

Day 130 Record Keeping SRHI = 73
Day 98 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 76
Day 44 Burpee SRHI= 67 (1x2)
Day 144 Eating SRHI = 34  
Great sleep, great wake up. Depressed before going to bed, uncommonly happy this morning.

Back from Travels

Travel was great. Some habits weathered the storm better than others - but most did so very well and in fact got stronger because of the changing circumstances. Will do a complete analysis tomorrow. I also plan on retroactively recording everything on the blog from my notes while traveling. And I may just share some pics as well.

Day 108, Second Danger Zone Revisited & Travel Protocol

Day 108 Record Keeping SRHI = 62
Day 76 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 61
Day 22 Burpee SRHI= 56 (2x6)
Day 122 Eating SRHI = 55  
Ok sleep, bleary wakeup. Depressed yesterday.

Second Danger Zone Revisited

In THIS post I mention a possibility of a second danger zone due to falling record keeping SRHI scores. Well today I have a falling score with Fixed Meditation, and this is something I’ll have to keep an eye on. Is it depression? Am I attempting to habituate too many things? Is it a fluke? Only time and further record keeping will find out.

Travel Protocol

UNFORTUNATELY, i’m adding a whole new variable to the mix. I’ll be traveling extensively throughout Brazil for the World Cup. As such my protocol will have to change to accommodate the change in daily routine.

With most of my habits I’ll just reduce them to TinyHabits - 2 burpees still counts. For my eating habit my intention is to  eat one clean meal a day and have that count. Fixed meditation doesn’t take long anyways.

But record keeping is dicey - it’s a habit that can’t be made tiny-er. I’m looking into offline survey creation and scoring programs so that I can keep it on my iPhone (so far no luck). I think my best bet is to have this all by hand - the low tech methods are often the best.

I know this will completely throw everything out of wack. My main goal is to just get through the next three weeks - even if the habits are ragged, even if I miss a bunch of record keeping, so long as I am doing it afterwards, I’m fine.

Needless to say, it is doubtful I’ll be blogging much - but I’ll try! Wish me luck!

Day 106 & Superhabits

Day 106 Record Keeping SRHI = 70
Day 74 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 73
Day 20 Burpee SRHI= 46 (2x6)
Day 120 Eating SRHI = 57  
Bad sleep, ok wakeup.

Superhabits

There seems to be a lot of vagueness in the literature regarding what a habit is.  I’ve formed habits during this project - they are regular, automated routines I’ve done for a long time, often triggered by certain events. 

But in another sense I haven’t - some authors talk about a habit as something so integrated into you that it’s actually harder to NOT do them that it is to do them.

I don’t think I’ve formed something like that yet - meditation, 750 words, record keeping are habtis. But are they HABITS?

When I stopped 750 words, was it really a struggle? Can I imagine that not meditating or not record keeping would cause me as much of a battle as what people face quitting smoking, or not worrying, or being a morning person?

And the answer is no. Presumably, once I’ve gotten to the 70s in the SRHI, it should, in some interpretations, be so solid it takes more effort to get rid of them than to maintain them, and this is clearly not the case. 750 words diminished surprisingly rapidly.

I’ll have to double check, but I’m willing to bet that Lally’s experiment on how long it takes to form a habit only got test subjects to the 70s. That there is no way a “superhabit” in the 80s was formed  (This bears some research, and I should read her paper again).

If this is the case - and I know it to be the case for me personally - there is much more to uncover when it comes to the entire process of developing habits.

Day 105 & Time Dialation, SRHI Hacking, and Theorized Additions to the SRHI

Day 105 Record Keeping SRHI = 70
Day 73 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 70
Day 19 Burpee SRHI= 49 (1x6)
Day 119 Eating SRHI = 52 (2x6) 
Ok sleep, ok wakeup.

Time Dialation, SRHI Hacking, and Theorized Additions to the SRHI

In THIS post I talk about potential hacks to the SRHI. I discuss certain aspects - like deliberately missing a habit to boost missed day questions in the SRHI or repeatedly doing a habit throughout the day (similar to how Pavel Tsatsouline increases ability in body weight exercises through a technique he calls “Greasing the Groove”).

I was just thinking of another potential method - in social dynamics time dialation is used to increase rapport. Meet someone at a cafe for 3 hours and you’ll (hopefully) have good rapport. Meet someone for coffee, then move to a restaurant, then move to a park within those same three hours, and later you’ll both feel as though you’ve spent much more time together.

What if this was the case with habits? Do them in multiple places throughout the day to dialate time in order to affect time questions.

Additions to the SRHI?

This leads me to the possibility of adding to the SRHI. The specific type of questions I want to add deal with sticking to a task despite changing conditions. I think we’ve all gained or lost a habit when we’ve gone on vacation or moved houses or whatnot. It’s easy to eat right when you’re at home, but when you’re inevitably dragged out, will your habit continue - our experience says no, because we haven’t trained with outside triggers.

A strong habit presumably is something that’s so ingrained that it ideally doesn’t change without trying to change it.

If that’s the case, then when you achieve a high number on the SRHI, it should be difficult to get the number back down - this isn’t the case from my experience. Leading me to conclude the SRHI could possibly need fixing.

But to get back to the original point, time dialation  would also affect this theorized new habit because it forces you to be solid despite the surroundings. 

Verplanken disagrees with me. He makes a fair point that the SRHI is a holistic exam - changing one type of question isn’t enough. My rejoinder is that it seems that hacking one aspect of the SRHI affects others.

When I do things repeatedly throughout the day, it not only affects my conception of time, how long I’ve done the task, but its automatacity AND frequency.

Now I have no concrete idea how doing this would actually look for using time dialation. For eating, perhaps you could go to as many restaurants as possible and order a salad and water when the waiter asks you for your order….though this wouldn’t be very good for your checkbook. You could attempt to exercise at a certain time in multiple places - but this would depend on your trigger.

I’m hoping after I get further along in this project I’ll be able to test these theories.

Day 103 & An Improved Score on Duckworth's Grit Scale

Day 103 Record Keeping SRHI = 71
Day 71 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 72
Day 17 Burpee SRHI= 52 (1x6 and another later in the day for fun)
Day 117 Eating SRHI = 59 
Good sleep, good wakeup. Got depressed last night, busted past it.

Improved Grit Score

A while back I mentioned Angela Duckworth’s Grit Scale. I took the test, and was not surprised to find that I had exactly average grittiness (3.5 out of 5). 

Looking back, I’m actually shocked it wasn’t lower. The questions ask whether or not you complete tasks, or get side tracked, if you switch projects month to month, and if you’ve ever finished a task that took more than a year.

I have always been that guy - the one distracted by whatever excites me most. And I get excited by a lot - the problem is that dabbling doesn’t get me anywhere. I end up having specialized knowledge on many topics, but few skills, much less mastery, of them.

And this continued to be the case until the last few years. With my job I’ve managed to get a modicum of success after years of work. It has really been one of the few things that I’ve displayed true grit in. And that’s not at all surprising given this project came about from wondering why people aren’t good at more than one or two things.

With this habit project, one I’ve been working on for about a year, I’ve faced a lot of setbacks (all my habits have imploded several times). I’ve also started to build things slowly  - in 4 more day I’ll have been eating clean for 4 months - blowing away anything I’ve done in the past. I just celebrated 100 consecutive days of recording habits, also a first. This project has forced me to work on sticking with things over time rather than just in bursts.

As such I recognize a close relationship between this skill, what I’m calling Endurance, and what Duckworth calls Grit.

That being said - has this habit formation project changed my Grit? I just took the test again, and found that my Grit is now at 3.83. This might deviate with repeated taking of the test. And it is a small change from 3.5 - but long term change is what Grittiness is all about, isn’t it?

Take the test yourself HERE.

Day 102 & A Second Danger Zone

Day 102 Record Keeping SRHI = 71
Day 70 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 70
Day 16 Burpee SRHI= 55 (2x5 and another few later in the day for fun)
Day 116 Eating SRHI = 61 
Good sleep, good wakeup.

Second Danger Zone Theory

I have been suffering an additional dip in scores from record keeping. This makes me wonder - is there another “danger zone” well after an SRHI of 70 (ish) is initially reached?

It could just be the normal problems I’m having with record keeping - namely, the lack of a precise, “crisp” trigger. 

I’ve changed my intention to “record keeping is the first thing I do after rising from bed.” BUT, I tend to do other things. I go to the bathroom and I get my coffee made, then sit down. Perhaps it should be “after I make my coffee, I do record keeping.”

Another possibility is that the magnitude of the task has increased. I now record 4 SRHI scores each day when at first I had one, and since I do it all by hand, it is quite tedious.

Still another possibility is that habits need to be rotated and charged - I talk about that possibility in THIS blog post.

But there is something that feels…I don’t know…RIGHT about having another dip in the graph. There’s a general boredom of doing the task - a monotony and a annoyance that feels like it fits with other times I’ve had habits.  There is something that tells me that simply reaching the 70’s on the SRHI isn’t the full story. I don’t know what that story is, but it’s something I’m definitely keeping my eyes on for other habits.

Day 101 & Vipassana Metaphor

Day 101 Record Keeping SRHI = 58
Day 69 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 71
Day 15 Burpee SRHI= 43 (2x) and another 2x5 later in the day for fun)
Day 115 Eating SRHI = 63 
Good sleep, good wakeup. Really bad bout of depression last night.

Vipassana Metaphor

In Vipassana, the idea is to focus on the mind itself. In the teachings I’ve learned, you calmly repeat in your mind some quality about the emotion you are feeling. After staying with that emotional energy long enough, it will dissipate.

For example, when I’m mad, I  focus on the bodily sensations - is it a throbbing at my temple or a chocking sensation at my throat. Then I simply call out in my mind whether it’s staying the same, lessening, or unchanging at regular intervals. 

This first works by distancing - by calling out the quality of the emotion I’ve immediately stepped away from it. By focusing on how it’s changing, I have no room to feed the emotion by replaying the images or voices that set me off to begin with. So gradually it starts to fade.

What’s interesting is that this works with pain. A few months ago I was having horrible tension headaches - when I did this technique the pain receded. I’ve used this same principle with stomach pains.

What if habit formation is like this, only for long term? We try to focus on keeping to a schedule, but it fades from us…we forget about it. But if we stay with it long enough, it fades, merging into our subconscious as a habit.

Record keeping is my way of staying with it - I calmly record deviances in performance just like I record fluctuations of emotion. Eventually they level out as long as I can restrain myself from getting caught up in either emotions or the forgetfulness of other tasks of day-to-day life. 

In emotions, you refrain from feeding the recall of what set you off. I think with habits it’s more of not feeding the voices of inertia. Change is an unexpected thing - we don’t expect it in others, and we certainly don’t really believe it in ourselves. So we stress out - “why isn’t it happening faster!” or “maybe I’m failing” echo, and ironically, these thoughts cause us to fail. 

By not feeding those thoughts…by staying with it, despite distractions, inner qualms, and outward lapses, we form a habit, and in forming a habit, we get the change we desire.

Day 100

Day 100 Record Keeping SRHI = 66
Day 68 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 69
Day 14 Burpee SRHI= 49 (3x5)
Day 114 Eating SRHI = 64 
Good sleep, good wakeup. 

First off

DAY 100!!!!

This marks the first time I’ve consecutively recorded anything for 100 days. This is a huge step in the right direction for my entire project. 

I remember when I was a kid, I was obsessed with recording habits. It started with my dad who was really into yoga - in a Hindu family, meditation was the key to everything, and I grew up on stories of heroes going into the wilderness to focus on themselves, to train themselves to be great. Later on, I got into martial arts. I remember picking up a book that claimed to teach the secret arts of the Ninja - and the beginning stretching exercises, which I practiced every day before going to school, were going to transform me.

As a child of the 80s, it’s not surprising that I was fascinated with this. Most of the video games I played and cartoons I watched involved a hero questing, developing ability after ability over the course of what later, looking back, was a paltry amount of time. 

Throughout my life my attempts at record keeping would fizzle out after a week or two. I got a planner in high school and later in college - I still have some of them and I remember my diligent notes - I would do crunches, I would run, I would practice music - whatever my obsession of the hour was.  But at some point I would absent-mindedly leave the plans in a drawer, forgotten until I would remember them again after a few months,  wondering at what point I had abandon my plans for self reconstruction.

It’s good to know I’ve made some progress since then. Here’s to more progress in the future.

Day 97 & Good Habits from The Sparring Mind

Day 97 Record Keeping SRHI = 71
Day 65 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 72
Day 11 Burpee SRHI= 47
Day 111 Eating SRHI = 59 Did not do yesterday.
Good sleep, good wakeup. 

Good Habits

Found a great overview of the science of motivation and habit fromation.

http://www.sparringmind.com/good-habits/

It covers just about everything I’ve learned - he gets into Baumeister, BJ Fogg, Phillippa Lally, implementation intentions, micrquotas, even books that I’ve talked about.

One thing that he talks about were studies done in visualization:

You see, a variety of research shows us that excessive fantasizing about results can be extremely detrimental to the stickiness of any habit. When you charge headlong into a new habit without clearly defining your goals, they will start to weaken, and it will be very difficult to stay consistent.

I had read this before, and it’s something I’m quite guilty of. I tend to fixate on the what-if scenarios if the goals were completed already. In order to make concrete change you have to fall in love with the process of change itself, and that is often the small steps it takes to get to the big ones.

Imagine if you could just love the struggle of doing small tasks - focusing on a perfect smooth transition between them in one day - that THAT was your goal rather than the six pack or the flossing as a habit or whatever. It’s the shift in thinking between an emphasis on the process rather than the result - and it’s a shift that is slow in coming to me.

Arnold, in his autobiography, mentioned something about this - that every time he worked out he thought that no one in the world was experiencing this amount of pain, and because of this, he was going to be a champion. That’s a good mentality to have along the frustrating path to self improvement - reframing the frustration as something transformative.

Day 95 & The Zeigarnik Effect

Day 95 Record Keeping SRHI = 71
Day 63 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 75
Day 9 Burpee SRHI= 45
Day 109 Eating SRHI = 59
Good night sleep, great wakeup. Continuing to have bouts of depression.

The Zeigarnik Effect

Found a great article on this recently.

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/05/work-smarter-use-the-zeigarnik-effect.html?mid=facebook_nymag

Now I’ve heard this term bouncing around self improvement blogs for awhile, but never actually looked it up. Basically the ideas is that procrastination doesn’t really come from laziness, but from fear. This is something I definitely feel strongly about, especially in my writing. If I just open up the word processor and start the task, it finishes, but I can delay doing a task for ever.

I think the same thing occurs with habits. Often times the habits we really want are the ones we can’t be bothered to start. Which is why I like BJ Fogg’s notion of TinyHabits - it’s a great way to bypass the fear of doing a task. And hopefully, when doing it repeatedly, the fear not only passes, but the task becomes automatic.