I have been obsessed with podcasts lately. I have liked been listening to them for a few
years, but the last 6 months or so I have just completely doubled down on my
obsession. This year I have read less
real books than I can remember at any point in my adulthood. (In a small defense we have had a ton of
stuff going on! We got engaged, we
bought a house, we are trying to plan a wedding, I have been spending time on
Life in the Green Room – I could go on, but most of you are even busier and
make my list look silly!) I was feeling
really guilty about this for some time because I love reading and learning. Then I realized I have supplemented my
learning in a non-book way. All of the
podcasts (& they are all nerdy topics!) have been supplementing my learning! I just need to reframe my education so books
count as much as podcasts in my file o fax J Ok – I’m now off my alternative learning
model soap box!
There is a relevant podcast and topic in here I want to
address! One of my new favorite podcasts
is ‘Happier’ with Gretchen
Rubin & Elizabeth Craft. It is
fantastic. I first learned about
Gretchen Rubin a few years ago when I read (yes, a real book!) The Happiness
Project with my book club. She has made
a career out of studying happiness and habits.
In her podcast right now they are discussing the 4 human
tendencies. (This is part of her new
book Better than Before – I think). It
is all about understanding your
tendencies so you can set up a system (although she doesn’t call it a system)
that will work for you. Her point is not
about trying to change yourself, but shifting your accountability model to
match your tendency. I took her survey and
I am an ‘Obliger.’ In a nut shell, an
obliger hold external dates and commitments the highest in priority and often
lets internal commitments slip. Her idea
is to take things that are most important to you and find a way to have an
external commitment. (By the way, your spouse
is most likely not an external commitment – too close to home! So you probably
need to think of something else). You can take the quiz on her site, if anyone is interested (I love it, but I know it is not everyone's cup of tea).
The podcast also covered another topic close to home (don’t
worry – I’ll bring this all together soon).
It also talked about the sequencing of events. Like once I meet the love of my life, then I’ll
lose weight. Or once I lose weight then
I’ll be happy. There are a million
versions of this and they are all dangerous because I can confirm it doesn’t
work like that. I am 100% guilty of the
first statement. Once I have a significant
other I’ll lose weight. In fact, the opposite
happened! For some reason I thought the
only reason I had unhealthy habits was because I was lonely, but the reality is
they are habits! They follow you,
regardless of your state. So it is best
to start working on them now!
For my outer accountability on health, it is one of the
reasons I am building Life in the Green Room.
I suspect I am not the only one who would like some external accountability
for health!
For the last part of my Mental Block Challenge, I need to
create one more system. Last week I was
hit over the head with the last system I need to create. It is a system to eat better when Jackson is
away. Pre-Jackson my dinners would consist
of whatever food items I had in the house.
And it was almost always one food item.
So I’d eat broccoli for dinner, or cereal, or chicken or popcorn or ice
cream or whatever ONE food I happened to have.
Jackson does not tolerate this and since we’ve been living together we
have really had more balanced meals (like protein & meat together!). However, when Jackson travels I’m like a kid
without their parents! I revert back to
old habits. He has taken 2 work trips
recently and both times I have had something ridiculous for dinner. One night I had crackers and ice cream and on
the second trip I think I had 2 Hawaiian rolls with cheese. This is screaming for a system and some
balance.
For my system, I will start easy; I am going to write on the
white board what I will eat the whole week when he is gone, I'm also gonna post it to Life in the Green Room as my external accountability! Even if I only stay at 80% of this, it’ll be
a huge step in the right direction. I know I took awhile to get to this system, but I wanted to share some of the context that helped me get here.
What Systems do you need to put in place? Let me know!
Life in the Green Room
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