[PODCAST 291]: Using STEP Principles for Sustainable Self Improvement

Learn | Do | Become

Content provided by Learn | Do | Become. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Learn | Do | Become or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.

8d ago 17:32

MP3•Episode home

When it comes to establishing new habits and improving my health, sleep, relationships, and other aspects of my life, I’ve often felt discouraged because I wasn’t able to maintain these habits long term.

I set out with the best intentions, just to spend 2-3 days working on that habit and then promptly forgetting about it. (Or sometimes life just felt too busy to even bother adding one more thing into my regular routine.)

I decided to take a step back a couple years ago and identify why exactly this was a sticking point for me. How come I struggled so much to make these habits stick? How many times had I said, “I’ll just work on this later…Now isn’t really the best time for me to try to do _____.” I realized that I wasn’t giving myself enough structure, reminders, or an accountability partner. Once I did that, I saw a huge transformation in my life!

I’m excited to share three examples with you in today’s podcast, and I hope this provides some inspiration for you as you consider your own goals and the habits that would bring you closer to achieving those goals.

None of these changes happened overnight, but I didn’t feel stressed or overwhelmed by the process of incorporating a new routine in my life. I used our STEP principles to guide me, and I felt so encouraged every step of the way!

Routine #1 – Daily Journaling

At the beginning of each year, I would start a new journal and have the best intentions of writing regularly about my life. I would promptly forget about this journal and maybe only write 2-3 entries in it for the whole year. And then the cycle would begin again with the next new year. I just couldn’t make this stick! And I felt bad that I was missing out on recording the small moments that were shaping our lives.

We were getting ready to have our first baby, my husband was about to start applying to medical school, and we were getting ready to do a little bit of traveling together. I knew that we needed to get this habit established soon if we wanted to have a little record of these transformative life events.

I looked online and found a simple, one line a day journal (linked below in the Related Links section) that seemed manageable. I got one for both me and my husband. We put them on our pillows or nightstands so that they would be in sight for us to write in each night.

There were a couple times when I had to put a reminder in my calendar to help us make time in the evenings to journal or catch up on a couple days that we had missed, but after a few of those calendar events, it started to stick!

I was also grateful to have my husband as an accountability partner. I asked him to remind me if I ever started forgetting to write, and I did the same for him. We are now coming up on 2 years of consistent journaling! It’s been amazing!

This felt so much more realistic and manageable than my previous expectation that I had of writing a full page every day or doing something really monumental and fancy. We thrived with this simplicity, and it only takes 2-3 minutes to complete each day. I love looking back on the past entries and thinking about how I’ve grown and how certain events have shaped me.

This routine is a more simple example because it really only took one Next Action to order the journal, and then I was able to add it to my Routines List/Calendar to get it to stick. Now that it’s a habit, I don’t need to think twice about it any more.

Routine #2 – Daily Green Smoothies

Making spinach smoothies for breakfast each day felt a little bit more difficult than starting a journal writing routine. I decided to treat this as a small project that was added to my Current Projects List. I wanted to find some recipes that were easy, fast, inexpensive, and that froze well so we could batch prep them.

I started adding simple Next Actions to my Next Actions List:

Ask my mom what smoothie recipes she uses
Look online for green smoothie ideas/tips
Make a shopping list with budget-friendly items
Try a couple smoothie recipes
Freeze some and see how they thaw/taste the next day
Add “smoothie prep” as a weekly routine on my Routines List and/or calendar as needed

After two years of doing this, we have a pretty solid routine down now, and we call it our “family smoothie party” to prep all our green smoothies for the week. Our two year old son will run to his cupboard and bring us his toddler-sized cup as soon as he hears that it’s time to make them. We’re all big fans!

And honestly, we don’t even use a recipe any more. We just throw in whatever frozen vegetables (spinach, zucchini, carrots, kale) and frozen fruit we have on hand, add some protein powder, yogurt, almond butter, and almond milk, and we’re set. It sounds like a random combination of things, but we love how it tastes and love how it encourages us to use all the odds and ends from our fridge that might have gone bad if we didn’t freeze them.

We got off track making our smoothies in the last couple weeks, so I added this to my calendar to help us get back on a consistent schedule. We may need this calendar reminder for the next few weeks to help us remember to make them, and that’s okay! That’s the beauty of calendar reminders–we can always count on them to help us stay on top of the routines that matter most to our family.

Here’s what our freezer looks like on a regular basis:

Routine #3 – Bedtime at 10:30

My husband (Josh) is a full-time student and I balance online work tasks/projects as a stay at home mom. Both of us tend to work on homework and work in the evening since it’s quiet and we can usually do our best, focused work once our kids are asleep.

We found that we were both staying up too late and neither of us really wanted to reset the apartment or tackle the home tasks required of us at the end of the day. We were staying up too late and feeling really tired most days.

We made it a project on our “Family” section of the Current Projects List to establish a bedtime routine and find ways to reset the house and anything else for the next day.

My husband and I sat down together and did a brainstorm of everything we wanted to accomplish by the end of the day. We realized that there actually wasn’t too much that we needed to do–start the dishwasher, switch the laundry, clean up toys, prep for the next day’s errands or activities–we just needed to dedicate consistent time and energy to making it happen.

Josh sent me a calendar invitation that repeated every night from 9:30 to 10 that said “Clean Up Together.” Once the calendar reminder/notification went off on our devices in the evening, we would hold each other accountable and get off of our computers or stop working.

I absolutely loved having this built-in time to take 20-40 minutes (depending on the needs of our house) to talk and work together. Sometimes we would listen to a podcast and other times we would talk about things on our mind/ask each other for advice. I began really looking forward to this time for connection with one another.

We were able to consistently get to bed by 10:30 each night and wake up to an apartment that was tidy and welcoming for the day ahead. Of course, there were a couple days when we had way too much going on or we just couldn’t do our usual routine. And that’s okay! However, we definitely noticed the impact it had on our family/home when things weren’t reset for the day and we felt like we weren’t starting the day on our best foot. It was just another reminder to us of the importance of this routine and the impact it had on us all day long.
_________
To close, I just want to share how impactful this has been to me. I now feel confident in myself and know that I CAN make small, meaningful changes in my life.

I CAN stick to new routines that make my life better and make me feel happier and healthier!

And here at LearnDoBecome, we want the same for you! Is there a new routine that you want to implement in your life? We’d love to hear your plan to do so in the comments. Will it be one of your Current Projects? Will you have an accountability partner? We’re cheering you on!!