Slow and steady wins the race every time!
Everywhere you turn someone is discussing their resolutions and goals, whether this is for work or personal life it is hard to avoid.
There is only one method to achieving anything that has worked for me, it is slow and steady - choosing a manageable goal that I can keep to consistently, can be adapted to my life and slowly but consistently change is experienced.
Whether I am setting goals for myself or with the children I am working with I first ask myself what is the change I want to see, what is something that is not working in our lives or in the lives of the families that I work with?
When I have found this I then start to look at whether there is a skill I need to learn to achieve this change or a habit I need to build.
So one thing in my life that I would like to change in my life is the amount of screen time I personally use. I know how to stay away from my phone, I have good self discipline, I am avid reader, have a good social life, I am intentional but still the phone draws me in! It is an expert in stealing my time. I have a performance deficit not a skill deficit.
I take the easy route to filling my time and escaping from the world. I even disguise my phone use as being productive! I am just on instagram looking for a recipe for dinner. 15 minutes later I am doom scrolling and filling my shopping basket with things I will have to return later. I am researching something I need to know nothing about, I will just do wordle and duolingo - 10 minutes on those equals 20 mins on instagram!
I know I do not use my phone when out with friends, I have no interest in taking and posting photos of my dinner, I also know I read at least two books a month and keep up with work loads etc but at home in the evening scrolling on the sofa or in the early morning is no way to start or finish the day. So to start to break the habit I am filling the time with other things, I am redirecting my behaviour! A great strategy for changing my habits. Instead of running on the treadmill I have started swimming, I can not watch my phone and swim - I am redirecting to something incompatible. Strategy!!!
My other strategy was to update my laptop. I have had the same laptop for over 12 years as the technology could no longer update I would write my substacks on my phone, do all admin and emails on my phone which instantly drags me back to instagram and nonsense. I do not associate shopping/doom scrolling or the unhealthy screen habits with my laptop so I am building on my good habits to tackle the ones I want to change.
I have of course had time limits on apps on my phone but have little to no will power at present to not press the - 15 more minutes option!
One aspect of the phone I am really struggling to tackle is my racing thoughts brain and needing distraction when pottering around my home but having a radio in the kitchen which I can play audio books through will hopefully support that habit change and starting to leave my phone in the other room for the night. This is my tough habit, so I know I will be successful I am going to start slowly - every week I need to choose 3 of 7 nights I will leave my phone in the other room. (I have an alarm clock so no excuses!!!) I don’t want to say 7 nights as I know I will fail at this so I am being reasonable and manageable with my goal!
But 3 nights I know I can do! I will choose at the beginning of the week which three nights and when I can do three consistently over 6 weeks I will see about increasing this! For consistent change we want something to be slow and steady, growth allows for a margin of error but not failure and then giving up!
So steps to making changes;
Choose what you would like to change and why!
Do you need to acquire a new skill or is it a performance deficit?
Thinking about a redirect or incompatible behaviour?
Making the change manageable, reasonable and with space for error.