Changing habits can be a real challenge, but learning how to break down and implement new goals according to your own brain is so important for different thinkers.
Transcription:
Hi, hello, I’m JoyGenea, international neurodiversity coach. This week I want to talk about habits and adding in a new routine. This last week I needed to add in a new routine for over a week for a book club that I’m in and it was awesome. When I got to the book club, they were like, “How did you manage to do that so successfully and achieve it every day?” And I went, I don’t even think twice about these things, I do them so naturally but definitely I need to pass them on to more people more often. So I walked them through the steps.
So, first I figured out what the directions were. I literally wrote them out. I’m like, “Here are the directions I need to do. Read this thing every morning, write out my experience- just a couple lines, super easy. That sounds, I mean it doesn’t sound like a big thing, but to make that happen, I knew that I needed to habit stack, and I knew I needed to have all the utensils and tools that I would need for success in one location readily available so I was not going off anywhere to do anything else where I might be distracted or I might get asked to do other things– any of the things. So, I made photocopies of the sheets that I needed to achieve this I put them in a bright green folder, I placed them in the location that they needed to be, which for me it was some mirror work that I was doing, and we’ll talk about that another time, that was actually in the bathroom on the counter, and because I was going to have to write some stuff out, I wanted to make sure that I had a writing utensil with it, and I was habit stacking. I needed to do this in the morning, so I knew, hm I brush my teeth every morning, can’t stand that feeling of morning, oh whatever that is in your mouth, that for me very annoying so I will brush my teeth no problem. So, habit stack. I would add this habit after I brush my teeth. It’s right there on the counter, I can grab it and do the thing, and as a bonus I put with dry-erase marker– I use my mirror to have small reminders to myself periodically using a dry-erase marker, so I put on the mirror an ‘M’ for Monday, ‘T’ for Tuesday, I did that all the way down for the days of the week and each– and I left that marker out also, part of the packet– and as I achieved that goal and did my project for the day, I would cross off that day. That way, I could remind myself, get a small dopamine hit, and know that that was accomplished, look I had achieved that goal for today. Which I was able actually at the end of the week to do all 7 days, and it was a really worthy effort and experience and I’m so glad that I did it.
So, that’s just a walk-through. A simple task, what sounds like a simple task, but ways of achieving it that are required for a lot of neurodiverse people. We need to break it down. So, I’m JoyGenea, thank you so much for joining me. I hope that it’s been helpful, there is a whole article on my website if you want to read more about it, and we’ll talk about mirror work another time. Have an outstanding day, and you can do it.