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The Consistency Hobgoblin

January 13, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

Eat Your Vegetables, They're Good For You!
Eat Your Vegetables, They’re Good For You! (Photo credit: the bridge)

Consistency is a concept that has developed a bad rap, at least in some neighborhoods. I’m not sure why this is but I suspect it’s because consistent has become another thing we should be, at least in regard to developing those habits that are good for us. Right off the bat, labeling a habit as being good for us automatically makes it a tough sell. If it was something we were going to enjoy, we wouldn’t have to persuade ourselves to do it on a regular basis, would we?

For some, consistent = boring and repetitious. It connotes a lack of spontaneity and freedom and engenders an instantaneous desire to rebel. It evokes, for those folks, the mental image of swallowing an evil-tasting pill. Ugh.

For others, consistency is nearly as elusive to achieve as locating the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It seems like a really good idea. At least they’ve heard that it is. Not being consistent at maintaining good for them habits makes some of these people feel bad about themselves and what they perceive of as their lack of will power.

For yet others, consistency is but a speck in the rear view mirror as they speed past it all the way to rigidity. Good ideas, good for them habits, personal goals or intentions—all are transformed into self-imposed rules that must—and will—be adhered to no matter what.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead. –Aldous Huxley

Maybe we ought to look a little deeper into those things we think we should be more consistent about. When you hear yourself say I know I should be [fill in the blank], stop and ask yourself why you think you should be doing—or not doing—whatever it is. Because it’s good for you isn’t a good enough answer.

If you can’t come up with a better one, maybe you’re putting the cart before the horse. Maybe you’re trying to make some positive changes without having clearly defined what you are aiming for in the long run. What do you want to get out of being more consistent about [fill in the blank] and why do you want that? What is the overall positive outcome you’re trying to achieve?

If you’re aiming for something you really want, and you identify the steps it will take to get there, it’s a lot easier to be consistent about taking them. I don’t mean to imply it’s that simple or easy because it isn’t. But if you have gotten to this point and you know the what and the why of the habit you want to change or begin or improve, there’s a process, outlined by Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit, that can help you do it.

Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness, or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission, but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realize—they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense. –-Charles Duhigg

Since there’s an element in the formation and continuation of habits that is outside of our conscious awareness, we may as well stop beating ourselves up over our track records in regard to consistency. Much more useful to learn how to work with what scientists call “the habit loop.” Duhigg’s book is a great place to start.

~ ~ ~

Thank you, Beverly, Jean, and Linda. 🙂

Filed Under: Finding What You Want, Habit Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, Bad Habits, Charles Duhigg, Consistency, Good Habits, Habits, Meaning, Power of Habit

Whose Life Purpose Is it, Anyway?

January 3, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Purpose.com Pumpkinfest
Purpose.com Pumpkinfest (Photo credit: leesean)

Purpose is a term freighted with significance; life purpose even more so. Realizing what our life purpose is—let alone fulfilling it—is so daunting a task that there’s a huge industry out there that wants to help us with it. Because we have to have one, right? If we don’t find it and go after it, life will be empty and our lives will have been wasted. This is tough enough to deal with early on in life, but as we get older it can lead to all kinds of stress and anxiety. If we haven’t found it yet, does that mean we’re failures? Or is there still time to undertake the quest?

Assuming we actually do have a life purpose, why is it so hard to determine what it is for so many people? What’s the big mystery? Whose purpose is it, anyway? If it’s yours, it should not be opaque to you. If it’s part of some universal master plan that requires we race through a series of mazes like rats in order to find the life-purpose cheese, do you really want to play that game? I don’t.

Life mission is another one of those terms, but with a twist that includes coming up with a mission statement for your life. It would be interesting to take a poll to find out how many people have written mission statements for their lives. But I think I already know what the results would be: damn few.

This idea that each of us has a specific life purpose probably derives from humanity’s deep need to understand the much bigger picture: the purpose or meaning of life itself. That isn’t something we can actually know from our particular vantage point, but it’s hard to live with the unknowing. So we search for the meaning of life and try to figure out what our purpose is in having one (a life).

This may seem radical to some, although I know it won’t to others, but if there’s a big-picture purpose to your being alive right now, you probably will never know what it is. If you believe you’ve found it and are living it, congratulations. I mean that sincerely. But if you’re still looking for it, feel free to give up the search. Have a bowl of ice cream. Listen to some music. Call a friend. Enjoy your day.

Filed Under: Finding What You Want, Meaning, Purpose Tagged With: Life Mission, Life Purpose, Meaning, Mission Statement, Purpose

What Do You Want?

December 24, 2012 by Joycelyn Campbell 5 Comments

I want that!
I want that!

If you can rattle off your answer to this question by ticking items off on your fingers, good for you! If your response is a blank stare, however, or a shrug of embarrassment, you’re definitely not alone.

Maybe you believe you should know what you want, and you think there’s something wrong with you if you don’t. Maybe you have a vague idea. Or a mental basket you’ve stuffed full of ideas over the years that’s done nothing but accumulate dust.

Maybe the only thing you’re sure about is what you don’t want.

Or maybe there’s something powerful that’s pulling you in a particular direction, but you need a lot more clarity in order to figure out if that’s where you really want to go.

There are plenty of books and courses out there that begin by claiming you really do know what you want. Do they mean to imply that you’re just being stubborn when you insist that you don’t? There are also a few books aimed at helping you figure out what it is you want and then showing you how to get it.

I won’t say the books and courses in the first category don’t have anything to offer, because many of them do. The problem I found with them is that their starting points were premature. I wasn’t there yet. Sure, there were a lot of things I could do and have thought about doing. But I wanted to dig deeper and do some more exploring first.

Books, courses, and workshops that focus on helping you figure out what you want (or want to do) are generally designed to take everyone through the same series of exercises and processes. I don’t like the one-size-fits-all approach for many reasons, but the biggest one is that most people simply don’t follow through. Maybe the exercises are too daunting. Maybe they simply aren’t appropriate for everyone (or for the stage of life a person is in). Maybe as we get older, we tend to rebel at doing homework. Maybe life gets in the way. Sometimes it’s a combination of all those reasons and more.

The upshot is that there are a lot of good ideas, exercises, processes, books, workshops, and courses that already exist. But a year and a half ago, when I was ripe to engage in the process of figuring out what I wanted to do next, I couldn’t find anything that felt like a good fit. I needed to start from the place where I was at right then and there. So I did, making it up as I went along.

I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads.
Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.

–Rosalia de Castro, author and poet

Ultimately, not knowing is the very best possible place to start from. So if you don’t know, but you’d like to and you’re curious, then right now you’re in the perfect place.

Filed Under: Finding What You Want Tagged With: Change, Farther to Go, Finding What You Want, Goals, Midlife

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