Mantra for Monday no. 32
The Olympics are now in full swing. Team GB are forging ahead with medals, a great feat for such a relatively small island.
It is at times like these that the commitment and dedication of the athletes in Great Britain and all around the world really shines.
We see the manifestation of their months and years of hard work and training…never giving in or falling short of the mark.
In stark contrast I often berate myself for not even doing the ‘simple things’, it frustrates me that I can't seem to commit or find the time to do ’10 minutes of stretching each morning’ or ‘floss my teeth each night’, you know the sorts of things….the simple things we know we should do, planned down to the last details so that we can easily fit them into our daily life…and then we simple don’t do it!
Does this just mean I’m lazy? Incapable?
I know I can be prone to self criticism but my guess here is that we all do this…surely it’s not just me that becomes frustrated in this way?
I had never really come to an answer other than….maybe I am lazy after all?
Last week however I read this post over at No Meat Athlete, a single sentence jumped out at me and suddenly everything became so much clearer. My body breathed a sigh of relief, I wasn’t lazy after all.
The idea is this:
Sometimes the simplest things to do are also the simplest things not to do….how true! Why had I never considered it this way before?
The basic premise
in this blog post was that for these simple tasks to find a consistent place within our daily/weekly routines they needed to be associated with a trigger since they were too small and insignificant an action on their own. Find a trigger in you daily routine that you always do without fail and then associate the new 'habit' with that trigger until it becomes second nature and until it is so fully embedded into you daily ritual that you no longer have to think or remember to 'fit it in'.
When repeated over and over those simple things really do make a difference in our lives and they are so important to both physical and mental wellbeing.... just take five minutes to think about those small things, those small things which really matter and then work out how to make them happen in your life.
What is a Mantra for Monday?
A stack of photography 'props' that formed an accidental arrangement on the dish drainer....a few knapkins thrown into complete the set.