here's some more unsolicited adult advice as someone in her 30s who knows there are a lot of twenty somethings and teens that follow her: if you're trying to build a new habit you really want, and are struggling, you have to break it down to the smallest building block possible. If you're failing, you haven't thought small enough. I know it's possible to hear stories of people who just snapped into new life mode one day by "just deciding", but truly what's happening there is a confluence of events and experiences that force the brain into some sort of epiphany. You cannot will an epiphany. It'll never work. For most times of your life, you will need to build habits intentionally, and that means not working against yourself and to set micro goals. like laughably tiny goals. because once that easy tiny goal is met, you can build off it, tiny goal after tiny goal until you reach your big goal.
so for example, if you want to be a morning person that gets up at ass crack dawn so that you can work out, eat brekkie, shower, and get to work at a leisurely pace, and you're not that person because you will hit your snooze button 800 times, you have to get the big picture goal out of your head. think smaller. "I want to get up 15 minutes earlier than I normally do." If you can't do that, make it 5 minutes. "I want to cook breakfast every day" hell no too big. "I want to eat something, anything, before I leave the house" hell yeah, fantastic. When you go to the grocery store to make sure there are things in the house for breakfast, if you keep buying bagels and microwave sandwiches that you ignore, you gotta think smaller. SMALLER. What's something so easy to eat that you'll never say no to. Is it a yogurt? Is it a handful of grapes? Is it a hostess ho ho? is it hot cheetos? FORGET the big picture of the fantasy put-together woman preparing a full nutritious meal that you'd be proud to admit to. Think only of the smallest goal you can achieve. If you know you can't say no to an ice cream sandwich, put a ton of ice cream sandwiches in your freezer and have one for breakfast every day until it's so instilled in you that you gotta get up to eat something you can start diversifying.
It sounds like, from the lack of habit place, that must take forever. But really it doesn't take too long to form the habit once the discipline kicks in. the trick is that you have to give your brain something easy to become disciplined to. If it's too hard, think easier and smaller. No one has to know. Literally no one in the gd world has to know that for 4 weeks when you were 22 you had an ice cream sandwich for breakfast every day. who cares. If it gets you eating oatmeal with fresh fruit in a few months who cares. you did it, yay. smaller, easier. if you can't do it, think smaller and easier. smaller!! EASIER!!! You are not thinking smaller and easier enough. break your brain thinking how small and easy you can go. SMALLER. EVEN SMALLER, SIS.
As someone in her late forties who has had actual life-changing epiphanies and who also still struggles to brush her teeth every day—my friend is right! Go smaller! Nope, smaller than that!
