Day 960

Day 960 Record Keeping
Day 932 Fixed Meditation (DID NOT DO)
Day 806 Writing (8/30 min, HARD)
Day 346 Rowing (DID NOT DO)
Day 87 Mobility/Stretching (DID NOT DO)
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Eating
Day 184 Pantry Check
Day 182 Food Recording
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Early to Rise
Day 115 Water
Day 115 Sleep Recording (12|4|1|2)
Day 86 Bedtime Curfew 71
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Good sleep. Spent almost the entire day working - on a deadline, so did not do a majority of other major habits. On a side note, I did, because of a writing thing, take the Duckworth Grit Scale again, and scored a 4.8/5. 

How much has changed. In October 2013 I blogged about taking it and getting a 3.5, and I’m sure that was inflated. Later I scored a 3.8, then just 5 months ago scored a 4.3. 

Angela Duckworth →

Looks like Dr. Duckworth has updated her page, no doubt in advance of her book - “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” which JUST came out a few days ago (I’ll be reading it ASAP.

This link is an automated Grit Scale evaluation, which is really handy in this format.

This time, I scored a 4.30 out of 5.0, a big improvement from my last score of 3.83

Day 372 & Habit Formation Speed &

Day 372 Record Keeping
Day 341 Fixed Meditation (brought up neg emot to quell - HARD)
Day 287 Bodyweight Exercise (bridges - HARD)
Day 214 Writing (didn’t do - very difficult to summon up willpower)
Day 387 Eating = 75
Day 22 Dynamic Meditation = 70 (30 minutes)
Great sleep, great wakeup. Very sore. This is a good thing, a reflection of pushing my workout habit. Unfortunately my willpower was very depleted today.

Increased Speed of Habit Formation

Today I talked to Lydia about habit formation. This planning is working for her - she’s recording and flossing, and it seems to be really working for her. She mentioned that her flossing habit is almost a habit at 50 days, and her recording is almost a superhabit at 100 days.

I mentioned that my dynamic meditation is coming quite quickly, and I started to think about it in terms of what it would mean for a habit formula. It seems as though my ability to form habits is increasing (Time to Habituation), and the Grit Scale might just be used to represent that in an equation.

I’ve only taken it three times, but it might behoove me to take it every time I start and achieve a superhabit.

Dynamic Med Notes (30 minutes):

x5 fidgeting or almost fidgeting
x3 an arising of nervousness

Notes: Another spontaneous arising. Makes me think that doing it multiple times in a day will help foster that spontaneity

I had a cheat day and the sugar spike noticeably effectd my mental capacity to keep at a more relaxed level

metaphor: it feels like a solvent - the ability to take an incoming experience and detach that cohesion to my internal mental state.

Just like habit amnesia, I have a dynamic meditation amnesia with this - I’ll forget to observe my thoughts and prevent arisings. It can be very annoying when it doesn’t work out positively, but absorption is a case where I just forget everything and it prevents negative arisings.

Art of doing two things at once is important. It’s very difficult to focus on work and this. Or even watching a tv show and this. Doing three things is almost impossible - I’m hoping this will get to the point where it’s just automatic.

Day 226 & The Meta Danger Zone

Day 226 Record Keeping
Day 194 Fixed Meditation (53 - 1:20)
Day 140 Bodyweight Exercise  (2x8 burpees)
Day 67 Writing = 63
Day 240 Eating = 66
Great sleep, great wakeup.

The Meta Danger Zone

Lydia noticed that I was having particular trouble with my habits over the last few weeks if not a month. She postulated a meta danger zone - if individual habits have a quarter mark crises where the likelihood of quitting is high, then could the project as a whole have the same thing?

At first I dismissed this - my meta habit really is record keeping, and I do notice a correlation in not recording and not doing my other habits. But this doesn’t actually address the skill of habit formation in general.

And this meta identity is something I’ve addressed before when I talked about Duckworth’s Grit Scale. To me the Grit Scale really is a scale at how good you are at mastering long term projects - and in my mind it can be taking as a metric of habit forming ability as well. If the metric improves, then it seems to me the meta skill exists at least on some level.

If this is the case, it would suggest that forming habits itself is a skill - and all skills go through a shaky period - a plateau or a time with steps taken backwards - that is a precursor to mastery.

This is an incredibly positive idea, even if it is illusory. The idea that fluidity and mastery are right behind a wall made incredibly fragile by your efforts makes you want to redouble them. To use weakness as a trigger for continued effort is a great reframe.