Am I on the path to Heaven or Hell?
Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay
I have been visiting my mom and dad during the Christmas holidays, and the visit has clearly demonstrated the importance of routines and habits. When you are administering a two kid-two dog family, routines are very important to get anything done. But the challenge is to keep the routines going when you’re away for a couple of days. One of the habits that did work though, is the writing practice. I was about to go to bed, when it hit me “What a minute, it’s Monday and I haven’t written my weekly piece.” So, not allowed to go to sleep yet. This is the 108th weekly piece without interruption and I am not going to start tonight. My writing habit has become like a giant flywheel that is spinning at high speed. There is MORE resistance to NOT write, than what it is to fire up the laptop in the middle of the night and get going. How interesting!
I wonder if it is possible to define how long it takes to establish a habit? I like James Clear´s answer: “Forever, because the moment you stop it is not a habit anymore.” That might sound depressing if you are far away from the goal, but the flywheel example above presents it in a new light. The further you have gone, the easier it gets. It also brings me hope when I consider my bad habits, of which there are plenty. They are not written in stone! They will stop being my bad habits the moment I stop doing them. But the flip side is unfortunately also valid here. The longer I have kept up my bad habit, the harder it is to stop. Not a single day passes without me reflecting on some of the actions I do and thinking “Why am I doing this? I KNOW it makes my life worse in the long run…”. That’s the dark side of the flywheel in action. I’ve been doing them for so long that the program kind of runs itself.
A bullet proof way of getting someone to do something you want, is to present them with a new situation after the proposed action, that is better than what they currently have today. Why wouldn’t you take on such an action? The catch is that it must be simple as well. And simple is not enough, it must be both better and simpler than the current situation. Then it becomes a no-brainer. I guess that narrows it down quite a bit. Usually, you are more often faced with a dichotomy like this: Ice cream - Very tasty in the short term, but horrible in the long term. Healthy food is likely to be less tasty than ice cream, but it will do wonders for your health in the long term. Or physical exercise – A lot of resistance compared to just spending three hours gaming Xbox (easy in the short term but destructive in the long term).
And another way of looking at it is that people are either motivated by inspiration or desperation. A proper dose of both the carrot and the stick is probably the optimal place to be. Writing out my trajectory is something that has helped me a lot. I have a written plan for my dream scenario with short-, medium- and long-term goals. The importance of this plan for my personal life cannot be overstated both professionally and familywise. But I also have a “nightmare plan”. I have described the worst possible outcome for me with similarly structured short-, medium- and long-term goals for how to destroy my life completely. It is equally helpful. These two plans are my carrot and my stick. The dream scenario tells me which direction to run towards. But I am way too comfortable and lazy to get going by a beautiful dream on a paper. That’s where the hell plan serves its purpose. If I don’t act on the dream plan, I am 100% convinced that the nightmare plan – Hell – is where I will end up eventually. And that is what gets me going. It’s a reason as good as it gets to start running as fast as I can, but it doesn’t tell me which direction to go.
Can the importance of the dream and nightmare plan be rank ordered? I haven’t thought much about it, but the first thing that pops into mind right now is that perhaps the roadmap to Hell is even more important. It’s better to start moving, because that’ll give you the ability to steer – just like a jet powered watercraft. You have zero control until you give it some throttle. When you get moving you can reflect on your new situation and re-iterate whether the new place is an improvement or not. To write a “Dream plan” seems obvious, probably to most of us. But to write down a “Hell plan”, that might be a new thing for many. Perhaps it is because we are afraid to accept that Hell is the inevitable destination of the path we’re on – IF we are walking down someone else’s path and not our own… A path that we did not make an active choice to follow, but rather just drifted along. We are talking end-of-life regrets here. That sounds like a pretty accurate definition of Hell to me.
Which path are you on? A Dream plan and a Hell plan could perhaps help you out. And if you already have them – like me – do not forget that they need to be updated at least every quarter/four times/year. I have sinned regarding the update part in 2021. Good. That will be my new year’s resolution 2022. Four thorough updates per year.