hello dear friends~
If there’s one thing I’m pretty confident about it’s this: whenever I start walking a new path, I will backslide. There will come a point when I revert to the old way of doing things. For weeks, I’ll bounce out of bed and happily flow into a new morning ritual, then on some random Thursday, I’ll open my eyes and feel slodgy — not a word, but shouldn’t it be? sluggish + groggy + stodgy. Instead of doing the thing I have set out to do, I want to pull the covers back over my head and stay there. Then, the judgments start: “Of course you couldn’t keep this up!” and/or “Why did you think you could really change?” and/or “It doesn’t really matter anyway.” Sometimes, this one moment of backsliding invites friends. All of a sudden, it’s like every single one of my tendencies and habits that do not serve me want to get together for a big party. I’ll crave junk food I haven’t eaten since college and want to watch that reality show that I know highlights the worst of humanity.
I wish I were joking. I am not.
And yet now that I have been here so often, I have begun to welcome this point as a milestone. This moment of backsliding is when I decide if the new strength, habit, or way of being is worth the intentional effort it will take to embody.
In 2014, a group of professors at the Wharton School — Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, Jason Riis — published a paper in Management Science called “The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior.” Feel free to read it yourself, but the take away is something all of us already know: there is magic in starting a new way of being on a special day: Monday, January 1, equinoxes and solstices, a day that is also your favorite number. You get the idea.
The problem with the “fresh start” is that it can also become an excuse to procrastinate. If I backslide, I can say to myself, “Okay, Alison, we’ll start again next Monday.” This is not helpful, particularly when the backsliding happens on a Monday afternoon. That’s a whole week of letting the backsliding take over.
To take advantage of a fresh start without the temptation of putting off the change until next Monday, I’m playing with a backsliding ritual. For me, it looks like this:
Greet the backsliding with friendliness. For years, I would judge myself and the old way of being harshly. Now, I look for how the old way was helpful. Eating that junk food was a way of self-soothing, watching the junk show was a way to distract and unwind. These are not bad things. Unskillful? Now that I have better tools, they are, but at the time they were the best I could do.
Thank the behavior for its service and say good bye. Just like with Marie Kondo’s life-changing magic of tidying up, when I say thank you to the backsliding behavior, it makes it much easier to let go. I’ll admit, there are some things that keep coming back. Some may do so for as long as I live. And I will continue to thank them for their service and bid them adieu.
Create a fresh start ritual. A dear friend of mine, Danielle Corcione — I’ve included her Substack link below — lights a candle as part of her morning intention setting routine. This simple action works beautifully for a fresh start. I keep a candle on my writing desk next to my colored pencils. When I hit that backsliding milestone, I take a few intentional moments to light it, greet the backsliding with friendliness, thank it for it’s service and re-commit. Writing a letter and burning it (in the sink!), going for a fresh start walk through the park or woods, and dedicating a session of yoga or meditation to the fresh start works, too. Play around and see what you like.
Expect more backsliding milestones. C’est la vie! Letting go of the harsh judgment and the temptation to procrastinate when I encounter the backsliding milestone has transformed how I approach making changes in how I live. Treating myself with gentleness when I’m making a challenging shift is so much more effective than beating myself up and/or procrastinating.
That’s it for this week! If you’re in the middle of a strength training effort and have hit a backsliding milestone: Congratulations! You’re part of the human family. I hope you find something here that is helpful.
with love, as always,
alison
p.s.
Here’s Danielle’s Substack if you’d like to subscribe.
Beautiful and real, thanks for sharing!