Meet Rob Norback, the author of the One Habit Blog. Rob’s goal is to help people “build a life that matters to them, one habit at a time.” He has a 30 email course called “The Keystone Habit.” You can get it for free (for now) here. Rob is a super smart, techie guy that is a we bit obsessed with habits – in a good way. Rob offered to tell us about how he moved his meditation practice from some days to every day. This is Rob’s first guest post ANYWHERE, so please show him some love in the comments! Here’s Rob:
I started meditating 636 days ago. After the initial excitement wore off, my meditation practice a had a few holes in it for about a year:
I didn’t have the most amazing streak, but doing the habit was more important than doing it perfectly. I remember the most dangerous days were the ones where I’d turn on my computer first thing and work on an idea I’d had while sleeping. I’d get lost in the work and put off my meditation until later. (Later almost never happened.)
Then one day, I was sitting down at my desk writing about small habits and WHAM! An idea flew into my brain with such force I nearly fell out of my chair.
“What if you went to the extreme? What if you did the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM every day? Could you still create a habit?”
So that’s what I did. If you’ve heard the expression “No practice is bad practice,” I decided to take that to the extreme. I was shooting for 20 minutes of meditation a day, but I decided that even one mindful breath would make my meditation “count”.
Now your reaction to this might be, “Well that’s just cheating.” But the question is, who am I cheating really? If you look at the research, habits form from consistency. We have to reprogram our brains for about two months on average to make the jump from, “Maybe I should do this,” to “I always do this. It’s part of who I am.”
So on Jan 4th, 2014, I implemented this idea, and look what happened:
And you want to know the truly wonderful secret behind this practice? The argument that, “I don’t have time, I’ll do it later,” no longer works! You always have time for one mindful breath.
I call this technique Allowing the Minimum. Enjoy it, and may your habits be far more consistent.
Happy habiting,
Rob Norback
P.S. We’re giving away a $200 High-End Meditation Toolkit over at One Habit and it ends Tuesday, Dec 2nd at MIDNIGHT. So hurry on over and sign up to join the fun!
I love this idea – not only for meditation, but for everything. I used to limit myself by setting rules like “I can’t run if I don’t have time to go at least 3 miles” or “I don’t have enough fresh food to eat right today.” As you can imagine, these self limiting rules, caused me to be unable to create lasting, good habits for fitness and healthy eating. Now, if I have time to run for 10 minutes, or exercise for 10 minutes (even 7 with this fave app) or to eat a few healthier things per meal, I do it. Allow the minimum to improve success and create great better habits along the way. Bravo, and thank you, Rob!
Like this post? Enter Rob’s giveaway and sign up for his awesome newsletter, too. Also check out his list of 21 ways to deepen your meditation practice.
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