Developing new habits

On the Wednesday evening of the first week (which was day three), I was talking to my trainer. I was telling her that the next day I had to go somewhere early in the morning. She asked if I was still going to walk. (cool! She didn't tell me I had to still walk first). So I decided in that moment that I WOULD get up a little bit earlier and walk.

She encouraged me to do it and said it's best to NOT detour from your routine, especially while you are still working to develop new habits. Not doing something “just this once” is a habit for me and then it becomes “since I haven’t done it two or three times, it won’t really hurt for me to not do it a fourth time.”

It takes 21 days to make a new habit. Twenty-one days …. Hey! That’s three weeks!

Wouldn't you know, I had another sleeplesss night. I was finally able to fall asleep two hours before the alarm was to go off. In my drowsy state I must have turned it off when it rang. Next thing I knew I woke up and saw that it was already time for me to be leaving home!

No time to walk now. I made a commitment to myself that I would walk when I returned home. I did, and it was the first time I walked that I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t “feel” like walking -- I felt like whining. I wasn’t refreshed while walking; lack of sleep can do that to you. And to top it off, it was much warmer to walk after noon than it was to walk in the morning.

The best thing about the whole experience was being able to say that yes, I HAD walked today.