A friend asked me today how things were going since I finished my thirty days of healthy focused living and I had to answer truthfully. It’s been really hard. Thirty days was definitely enough to change my hardware so to speak. Sugar tastes too sweet, large meals give me stomach aches and I’m wearing a jacket that’s been in my closet for years waiting for me to ‘just lose those last few kilos’.

Unfortunately, thirty days was not enough to rewire my software. This week I’ve discovered that in my mind I’m still someone who looooves to sit on the couch and eat cookies while watching Netflix. What a pain, literally, as my hardware objects strenuously to large amounts of cookie eating these days.

Despite this short term setback, I refuse to let this change my forward direction. I’ve found that the habits that I have kept on doing since Day 31, like getting up early and doing yoga, have stayed consistent. The activities I have done less frequently, or have not been able to do, are starting to fall by the wayside. Even journaling is falling off a bit. Like many perfectionists, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, I have an aversion to writing down my failures. I’m more likely to take a break until I have a reason to report success. The only exception to this preference is blogging, where I feel writing about my failures can add value to someone else’s journey while reinforcing my commitment to my own.

So, where to from here? Obviously, I’m going to keep forging ahead. I read a good Zen Habits blog post on this earlier in the week about the importance of encouragement in developing habits so I’m going to stay focused on building these habits rather than being perfect at each one. It takes years of focus to really change your mindset and identity. I’ve spent over twenty five years developing a couch sitting, cookie eating persona and I suspect it’s not going to change overnight.

Do you struggle with forming new habits? Perhaps you have a story about taking on too much and failing or a success story about how you’ve overcome challenges like mine? I’d love to hear about it.

Published by the lean minimalist

Donna Sherriff is a New Zealand based improvement and operations management specialist. Seeing a need for simple, no fuss, improvement advice she started The Lean Minimalist blog in 2017. Donna writes articles offering advice and tips for rapid and sustainable business improvement based on over 15 years in Senior Management roles. Passionate about sharing the lessons of over 20 years on the high performance track Donna offers coaching services to professionals. She also writes about her own personal improvement journey, minimalism, and her life long struggle against the tyranny of cookies and sugar which she overcame in 2020. These days, Donna is pursuing a journey to earn her black belt in Taekwondo after a long hiatus of 16 years away from training. On the side she is an amateur but passionate musician and poet. View all posts by the lean minimalist