Tiniest Possible Health Missions

[Marauder_Jade]

After many ambitious "get healthy" projects that began strong, lasted about three months, and then crashed and burned... I am finally coming to terms with the fact that massive action... might not be the way I actually succeed at making sustainable change, so I have spent the last 19 days trying a new approach -- I have been on a mission to track only the completion of one tiny habit that my brain couldn't argue with:

being in bed by 11pm.

Not sleeping -- just physically in bed with the lights off. The goal of the "mission" was to hit this target for 17 of 21 days. I'm almost finished with the first mission and starting to look ahead.

I know this isn't enough sleep (because I have to be up at 5:15)... but it is a place to begin that my brain couldn't argue me out of. It's enough time that after the kids are in bed, I have time to chat with the husband, do some crafting, and then wind down before bed.

The point of doing these missions was to build up the muscle of keeping promises to myself (how many of us would never dream of breaking a promise to someone else but totally stink at keeping promises to ourselves?), and completing it is a foundational win!

The next three missions I'm going to add for 21 days each (not all at the same time) are:

• Glass of water first thing
• Stretching routine
• Protein target at lunch

This isn't an exhaustive list of all of the wellness things I do, just the ones I'm trying to cultivate on purpose. (I do already eat a lot of vegetables and try to go walk a few days each week.)

By stacking up "tiniest possible" habits, I'm hoping to build momentum. What's the tiniest wellness habit you've deliberately cultivated?

 

[JesseW]

Oh, I love these! And particularly the 17 out of 21 days part. That's wonderfully sensible.

To add one of my own:

• 5 minutes of freewriting (moving my hands up and down on a keyboard, no matter what comes out) per day