My word for 2023 is “Incremental Gains”. Okay, so it’s two words.
The seed of this intention comes from one of the biggest lessons I learned last semester. It is this—-transformational change can happen through one small action carried out consistently.
The second part of this lesson is that the shepherding of said change can come from a place of ease. It doesn’t need to involve pain, resistance, or any stress. It’s possible these changes can come from a sense of fluidity.
Listen- this concept is against all of my trained instincts. I’m used to pushing myself. HARD. I’m used to finding my limit and then stretching it further. I’m used to facing my fears and running towards it full sprint. I’m used to staying up nights, eyes on the prize, until I’ve reached my hard-won goal.
I’m not saying that hasn’t been useful. What I am saying is that it’s been a strategy I’ve leaned on quite heavily to the point where it leads either to high dopamine rewards or complete paralysis. The older I get, the more I realize what kind of toll this particular method can take on my mind, soul, and body. It’s not super sustainable.
Maybe there are other ways.
One of my biggest revelations coming into grad school is the idea that there might be other ways of knowing. With this scholarly adventure, I’ve decided that I’ll put aside the ways of knowing I’ve depended on and bring in a curiosity for new tools, strategies, and potential paths.
For this particular leadership class, we were required to inventory all of our time in 15 minute increments for 7 days straight. Then, we had to categorize them into at least 12 roles. After our data collection, we take a look at decide… is this how we want to spend our time? Does it reflect the roles we want to play in the amount we want to play them? Does the way we spend our time reflect our values? Does our time accurately portray who we are, who we want to be, and how we want to show up in the world? We also ranked on a scale of 1-5 how present we felt and what energy level we observed within each activity.
After these reflections, we picked one small action to work on for 42 days. We visualize the arc of this action (the before, the during, the after) what will make it easier to accomplish (hint: we were told that we need to be able to jump into it within 20 seconds to make it an easier to form), and what circumstances and conditions either support our practice or work against it.
I chose to engage in one of my 5-ranked activities (where I felt most present) at least 3-4 times a week for 10 minutes minimum. In my inventory log, only 5 activities qualified for this intention—- swimming, climbing, spending quality time with family, meditation, and writing.
We wrote reflections every few weeks with specific prompts. We gave encouragement and asked questions to help us reflect further on our practices. At the end of the 42 days, I wrote the following for my last reflection:
“The biggest tactic I've learned in reflecting on the 42 days is that it doesn't have to be hard. I often find that I choose things that are purposely challenging so that I feel I've "earned it". But what if our most transformative changes are seeded from a place of ease? My new tactic is to consider approaching with ease.
One change I experienced is how much joy exists now in my life with the (re)introduction of very simple practices.”
Our class ended in December. I decided to carry this intention into January but making two of my practices daily—- writing and meditation.
I do really well with visual progress trackers. So I started a clip jar for writing. I give myself a clip for 10 minutes of writing, any kind. I get another clip if I keep going. If I switch what I’m writing about (ex. journaling, novel-writing, articles, this substack, etc) then this new writing qualifies for more clips. Writing-adjacent activities also count like research, reading, editing, etc. When it fills, I take my inner-writer out for something nice to treat myself or perhaps get myself a writing-related gift.
I also bought stickers and have a star for each day I do a 30-minute sit. I always do them in the morning immediately after I’ve woken up. And, YES, that IS 2 stars on the last two days of the month. I decided to up my practice to two sits a day and to see how I feel about it. So far, I love it.
For both activities, I also put in an additional layer of accountability. I have a writing friend text me once a week to request a pic of my jar. I joined a meditation class this semester that met weekly in January and will meet monthly for the spring quarter.
While I don’t do it daily, I still climb 2-3 times a week and swim 1-2 times a week since class ended. As far as quality time with the family, I now do a standing Thursday night date with Ryan. For the month of January, I took one of the girls out for office hours or for a mom-date every weekend.
After only a month of doing daily meditation and writing, I’m finding so many benefits aside from joy. Although, I’ll say joy is enough of a benefit to keep continuing. A stronger peace of mind, a mindfulness of when my “hustle culture” vibe tries to take over, and an even more dialed-in intentionality over my time and energy. I find more value in what I keep in my life. There’s more meaning saturated in every action. Who knows what my findings will be after a year of doing this?
I still struggle some days with this idea of incremental gains. Old habits die hard. In fact, trying to write this entry is a great example. I kept avoiding doing it in small pieces and trying to kick the ball down the road to one day where I can devote one massive stretch of time to it. I kept thinking I needed to do it big, glamorous, or all-encompassing. I needed to write my best work. I needed to spend hours to make up for the time I’ve spent elsewhere…
I reminded myself today, on the last day of the month, that I wanted to write in this at least twice a month. And that it could be that I dole out a few minutes to show a tiny step towards my own liberation. And it doesn’t have to be hard.
So I did it! I wrote it. And, it’s true. It wasn’t hard once I took the pressure off myself. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be reminded of this lesson over and over again throughout 2023.
I’ve also tried to do something like this before. Many, many times. But this time feels different. There was rigorous data collection, tons of thoughtful reflection, and meaning woven into and throughout this whole process. It wasn’t about me needing to do it to generally feel like a “better” or “healthier” person. Now I’m doing it because I believe it aligns with very specific values that are important to me. I do it because it supports what I find my role to be in collective social change.