The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 356 - Back on Track

Transcript:

Jen: Well, hello there, Peter Shepherd.

Pete: Hello there, Jennifer Leigh Waldman.

Jen: I don't know why I had to go with the full name today, but there you go. I just returned from a really amazing trip to Scotland.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: But something has been on my mind, which is how easy it is to get off track.

Pete: Okay, yeah, I feel like I am a bit of an expert at going off track. Love a tangent. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Well, I'm talking about habits, but you're talking about conversational threads?

Pete: I am, yeah. Yeah. Conversational threads, where I enjoy and almost deliberately look for the random tangent to send the conversation in (like I'm doing right now), which usually has nothing to do with the actual subject matter. I don't know why, I just enjoy that dance of like, "Let's follow that random thread and see if it's funny."

Jen: Well, should I get us back on track then?

Pete: You get us back on track. You get us back on track, I'm sorry.

Jen: Okay. So I went to Scotland for my niece's graduation, which was absolutely amazing. And I had all of these plans about how I was going to stay committed to my habits and routines and best practices while I was gone. So I brought my workout clothes with me. I brought my exercise bands with me. I worked out when I'd be able to sign up for one of the online classes that my gym does. I was ready to go. I made this commitment that I was going to go to the supermarket while I was there. I was going to buy all this healthy food. And when we were in the flat where we were staying, I would eat the healthy food. And when we were out on the town, I'd do whatever I needed to do.

Pete: Yes, this is so relatable already. This is so relatable.

Jen: Anyway, Pete, literally none of it happened. Not a thing. Not one workout happened. Not one vegetable happened. I mean, not one lean grilled chicken breast happened. It was a free-for-all. And on the one hand, it was like, "Okay, I was on vacation. It's totally fine." So, I'm not really beating myself up about it. But I just have to wonder at how intentional my planning was and how simple it was that after the first day when things didn't go to my plan, I was like, "Well, I'm off track, so that's it." And I just threw my hands up, and that's what it was.

Pete: That is so funny. I find this painfully relatable, not just on longer vacations or holidays. But I travel a lot for work, and every time I travel to work, I'm staying one night or two nights, whatever it is. I'll pack my runners or my workout gear, and I'll be like, "Yeah, so I'll just continue with my usual routine. I'll wake up early. I'll just do some exercise. I'll sit and have a coffee, maybe just do some planning around the day. I'll go to bed early. I'll eat really healthy." And even on a one-night work trip, you get back to the hotel room after a full day of work, and you're like, "I'll probably just sit over here and maybe order some room service, and I'll just eat whatever. I'll watch a TV show, because I never get to watch a TV show." And all of a sudden, it's later than I'm usually awake, and I'll put myself to bed, scroll on my phone...which I never do. And then, you wake up late, and you don't use the exercise gear. And this happens to me monthly with my work trips. And yet, I still always pack the runners, just in case.

Jen: Because one of these days, one of these days. Well, it's funny, Pete, we flew back in to the States last night. And this morning, like I usually do, I woke up with the sun. I got dressed. I went out. I walked around. It was very early, because I'm a bit jet-lagged. So, it was very early. I walked around for a couple hours. I did my workout routine. I went to the supermarket. I bought healthy foods. I prepared the foods. I drank all of my water. It was as if last week was a fever dream.

Pete: She's back. How funny.

Jen: And I'm curious about how easy it is to break a habit. And that was really what this was going to be about. But then, this morning, I was like, "Oh, wait, it was just as easy to get it back. That's fascinating." And I've had this other experience with this recently, where I'd really fallen out of my reading practice, which is so bizarre for me. I just wasn't reading. And I was like, "Maybe I don't have a reading habit anymore." I picked up a book last week, and I devoured it in a day. And then, another one the next day. And I'm back in my reading habit. It's like, it's wild. What is that? What is that, Pete?

Pete: I don't know. Because I think that there's a world where, one way of looking at this...I've spoken about this before I think, with, for example, my blog writing habit that I did weekly for, I don't know, four or five years. And then, a couple of years ago, I thought I'd take a few weeks off when Ollie was born. And I literally haven't written a blog post since. And so, I was thinking maybe there's a world where skipping a habit, getting off track is super easy, but getting back on track is really hard. But actually, what you're describing is how easy it can be to get back on track with certain things. So the change point for me, or one of them...I'm sure it's not just one, I'm sure it's not the only. One of the change points for me is something about environment. Like, your environment matters.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: But when you change your environment, i.e. you went to Scotland, there's some random unconscious permission or extra tension that gets added to maintain habits that you usually have in your environment at home. And then, when you get back into your environment at home, subconsciously, you're like, "Oh yeah, I remember what I do when I'm in this environment. I go for a walk and do some land snorkeling at 5am."

Jen: Right, because my environment is actually set up for success. I might be making this up right now...I will fact check this. In Gretchen Rubin's book, Better Than Before, which is all about habit building, I think one of the things she talks about is, "Change your environment to change your habits," like, make your environment habit-friendly.

Pete: Yeah, I've definitely heard that. I think at various times we've talked about having a different desk for doing different activities. Or maybe I borrowed that from Austin Kleon, who has like a manual desk where he's not allowed any tech gadgets or computers, and he's just only able to do manual stuff with his hands and scissors and glue. And then, he's got like a proper work desk with a desktop and a laptop. And it's like these little micro-environments that are conducive to certain types of work, as well as obviously what we're talking about, which is almost like the macro-environment of where we actually are.

Jen: Okay. Now what about, Pete, I'm looking at the flip side of this, habits that are really hard to get back on track? So, I'm going to give you an example from my own life. I was on quite the tear of working on this one project for a little bit every day. It was a long project, a little bit every day. I had something come up where I had to put that on hold for a little bit. I am 95% done with this project, and I have not gotten back into the habit of doing the little bit every day. And truthfully, Pete, if I did that, I'd be done in a week. So why is that so hard to get back on track, but getting back to my fitness routine and my reading routine were so easy to get back on track? What is going on there?

Pete: Okay. Well, I want to flip the question to you, firstly. It's my first temptation.

Jen: Okay, please do. Thank you, Coach Pete.

Pete: I have my own opinion or idea, but I want to hear yours. So why is it that one is easier to reintegrate or pick up again, and one is still sitting at 95%?

Jen: Are you asking me to answer that right now?

Pete: I am.

Jen: Okay, here's what I think. My fitness and my reading and my land snorkeling has no end point. So, there's no next phase. And once I complete this project, I have to do something with it.

Pete: Right. Right. My god, that's so funny. That's exactly what I was going to say. I was going to say one feels like an infinite task.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: I guess you call that an infinite game. The other one feels like a finite game. There's an end point. And then, when you reach the end point, maybe there's a subconscious fear or a subconscious lamenting of, "What is the next stage going to look like? And what do I have to do with it once it's finished? And do I have to start a whole new project about getting this into the hands of people who I actually think want to use this thing? And that feels like a whole other thing." Whereas, "If I just don't quite finish it, I never have to entertain that whole world of shipping it and sharing it and talking about it and encouraging people to use it."

Jen: Right. Yeah. So, I think I have a little self-reflecting to do. Because on a more surface level, I'm very excited about sharing this project. So, maybe there's something deep down. Wow. Did this just turn into a therapy session?

Pete: I don't know. You tell me, Jen. Did it? How does it make you feel? No. The other thing in your example, just thinking about this, that feels worth saying out loud is, one of them also involves other people and one of them doesn't. Finishing the project, then, I imagine impacts a bunch of people, once you finish it and start sharing. Whereas, "I'm getting back on board with my little exercise routine in the morning...," I don't know why it has to be a "little" exercise routine. Your exercise routine in the morning, it doesn't really impact anyone else. It's for you. And so, I don't know if that is part of the reason that one feels easier and one feels harder. Not sure. Just a thought.

Jen: Interesting. So this is a little meta, but I was explaining to our mutual friend Julissa earlier today that one of the reasons we do this podcast, in addition to we enjoy doing it, is that it forces us to maintain the habit of our friendship. And if we didn't have this podcast, would we talk as frequently as we do? I don't know the answer. I don't want to know the answer. I'm not tempting fate or anything. But it is amazing to think about how quickly this relationship could fall off. Because it's so inconvenient. I mean, you live on the other side of the world. We have to literally schedule every conversation that we have.

Pete: There's no impromptu, "Oh my god, Jen, it's so good to see you again," conversation, that just doesn't exist. That's so true.

Jen: It has to be so intentional. So this friendship is a habit that, if we didn't tend to, it could just like whoosh, vanish into the night.

Pete: It's sort of depressing to think about. I think it might. Not because we wouldn't want to, but because we spent ten minutes before this, you were like, "What have you got going on?" And I was like, "I mean, literally nothing, Jen. I had a two-year-old birthday party on the weekend. That's my entire existence at the moment." So if we didn't have this call scheduled, I don't think I would call you to go, "Guess what, Jen? There's nothing really going on in my life except for this two-year-old birthday party." Which is definitely not nothing, but it feels like sometimes, I don't know, in a conversation with a friend, you need to like bring some fun, new, exciting idea or thing to the table, at least that's how I feel. And so, it would be easy for me to go, "Nah, there's nothing really to report to Jen."

Jen: Right.

Pete: Okay. So the other thing that I'm sure we've mentioned on thirty-five other episodes, that I think about constantly when it relates to habits is from James Clear, shocker, who wrote the famous book, Atomic Habits. And one of the, you know, almost throw-away lines from that book, that I think about so often, is, "Keep the habit, reduce the scope."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And he talks about the idea that, you know, if you're planning to or if your habit is usually you do a one-hour gym session, and one day you just don't have time to go to the gym for an hour, it's better to do a two-minute series of push-ups at home and keep the habit of working out by reducing the scope, than to go, "I'll skip today and I'll go tomorrow."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And I just think about that all the time. How can you keep the habit and reduce the scope? If you want to meditate for ten minutes a day, what if today it's just a thirty-second one, so that you keep the streak alive? You keep the habit and you totally reduce the scope. And so, I don't know, maybe that's something I'm talking to myself about next time I'm traveling to Sydney for work. Maybe instead of trying to do a gym session that I would normally do at home, the trick is actually to just do a two-minute workout in the hotel room and go, "Yes, I kept the habit."

Jen: "Yes, I did a two-minute wall sit. That's enough."

Pete: Exactly.

Jen: I will say that while I was in Scotland, I did get up before everyone else in the family. Shocker. And I went on sixty-minute to ninety-minute walks. So, I guess that's exercise.

Pete: It's also still the same habit, is it not? Isn't that what you do at the moment?

Jen: Yeah, I do that. But I had thought I was going to do something else. But yes, you're right. You're right. Maybe I shouldn't beat myself up so much.

Pete: Maybe. Maybe. Welcome to the human race.

Jen: Right.

Pete: "I Feel Like Maybe I Shouldn't Beat Myself Up So Much" is like the memoir of the human race. So the thing I want to nail, and maybe I'll never nail it, but the spirit of this conversation is, what do we learn from this about getting back on track? I feel like the "on track" part for me is the hard part. This is such a random analogy, but it reminds me of the three stages of a relationship I heard once before from a marriage counselor. I'm sure I shared this at some point, where there's like each relationship, whether it's romantic or otherwise, is in one of three stages: harmony, disharmony, or repair. And the only way from disharmony to harmony is through repair. So actually, the most important skill in a relationship is the ability to repair. That's this one particular person's assertion. I can't remember who it is, but I'll find it and put it in the Box O' Goodies. So in the same kind of spirit, it's almost like our habits are on track, or they're off track, or they're in repair. They're somewhere between the two. So, how do we go from off track to on track? What does that process look like? For you, it sounded like it was, "Oh, I flew back from Scotland to home." But for the rest of us that are maybe falling off track with a workout habit or a work habit or insert whatever habit you're trying to get back in touch with, what is that bridge? What is that repair, do you think?

Jen: Well, what's interesting here, Pete, is...I'm having a little bit of an aha moment.

Pete: Even with your jet-lagged brain? Oh my god.

Jen: Yeah. Which is, once a habit actually becomes habitual, it may be so much a part of your existence that you haven't examined the track recently. And so, knowing what the track is might be the way to get back on track. As you mentioned to me, my environment is conducive to my habits, but I hadn't noticed that because my habits are so habitual. So in order to execute the repair, maybe we actually have to know what it looked like before it was in disrepair.

Pete: I think I'm also having an aha moment. Because I agree with you. And maybe we are actually unaware of and need to do some land snorkeling on our existing tracks, to know what they look like, so that when we fall off them or veer off them, we know what it looks like to be back on them.

Jen: Right. Let's quickly take my fitness routine. I go to the same place every day. I wake up at the same time every day. I am going to see the same people every day. Everything about that habit is so well-oiled that my success in it is almost guaranteed. And so, I took myself out of the same place every day, the same way to get there, the same equipment, the same people, the same water bottle, for crying out loud.

Pete: Right.

Jen: And then, expected myself to function as though I was in my normal environment. Now that I'm saying that out loud, it's ridiculous.

Pete: Yeah. It's like the more unknowns we have, the harder it is to maintain a habit. Wherein the less unknowns we have, because everything is so familiar to us, it feels like the more likely we are to stick to our habit.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.