I read Zen Habits daily (through an RSS feed like I read most blogs) but every now and then, a post reaches through the computer screen and pinches me on the arm. Hard.

I think, as people with diabetes, we are constantly having to adapt to big events that challenge our nice routines and best laid plans. How do you get back on track? That’s got to be one of the hardest things we do. We all fall down once in a while but how do you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again?

I’m lifting this right from the post but I highly recommend checking out the whole blog, his e-books and reading on a regular basis. You may not agree with everything – but there is a tremendous amount to think about in every post.

How to Beat the Major Disruptions

So how did I do it? How does anyone beat these disruptions and get back on track? A few things I’ve found to be useful:

1. Expect the disruptions and accept them as part of life. I’m not saying you should expect death or the loss of a job or other tragic things to happen at any minute, but do know that there will always be disruptions to your routine. Consider them bumps along the road, a part of any journey, and something that you just need to deal with and then get back on track. If you allow these bumps to stop you every time, you’ll never get to the destination. But if you know, from the outset, that there are going to be bumps, and you know that it’s simply part of the journey and that you have to overcome them, you’ll get there eventually.

2. Always remember your motivation, and get excited. Why did you have the routine in the first place? It must have been something important to you for you to have taken the effort to make it a part of your life. If you were exercising, you must have enjoyed it and had a pretty important goal or reason to exercise. If you were saving money, there must be a strong reason to do so. Always keep your eye on that goal, remember why you were doing it, and get yourself passionate about the goal again. If you get excited enough about it, you’ll go back. It’s when you don’t really feel like doing it that you have a hard time re-starting.

3. Find a partner or a coach or a class. This is just one of the best motivation tips for any goal, but it’s especially useful when you’re trying to get back on track after a disruption. Having a partner, for workouts or any other goal, is a great motivation to get started. It helps that I have my sister to run with, because when we make a date to meet in the early morning hours, I don’t want to miss that date and leave her alone outside while the sun has barely started its first cup of coffee. With business projects, it helps that I have a partner, or I might never get started again when I get sidetracked. A coach or a class are just as good motivators, though personally I’ve found a partner to be more convenient.

4. Start small. Yes, you’ve heard this from me so many times it might as well be a mantra. But it’s good advice for trying to get back into the swing of things. Don’t expect to pick back up exactly where you left off, whether that’s with exercise or diet or work or anything else. For example, if you were running 30 miles a week, you might start out with just 10-15 miles a week — run 3-4 miles, three times a week. Just to start out with. It makes it easier to start out, and it’s something you can adjust to easier. Once you’ve adjusted to this lighter schedule, increase gradually.

5. Allow yourself a break without reproach. When I moved to a new home last week, I knew I’d have to take a break from workouts and work. It wasn’t a planned break, but once I realized how busy I would be, and how tired my body would be from all the lifting and moving, I knew I’d have to take an unplanned vacation. And I told myself, “This is a good thing. My body needed a break from training anyway, and my mind needed a break from work.” And so I took the break, knowing it was good, not feeling (too) guilty, and knowing that I’d get right back into it as soon as the break was over.

6. If all fails, start the habit again, the right way. If you’re just having a tough time restarting, you might need to start back from the beginning, with the basics: focus on just one habit at a time, for 30 days, making it public, giving yourself rewards, finding a trigger, being as consistent as possible. All of these are the effective habit-change principles I talk about in my book, The Power of Less. I highly recommend you read the book if you need help forming habits, and sign up for The Power of Less 30-day Challenge forum.

The other day, one of my favorite blogs had a great post about Two Simple Ways to Form New Habits Without Really Trying. It was a guest post from HERE which may end up added to the people I try to read every day.

At any rate, I really liked what he had to say – and not just because he agrees with what I’ve been thinking!

When we try to change an old habit or add a new habit, many of us try to leap from point A to point Z with no real steps in between. We think that because we’ve decided to exercise, we ought to be able to just jump into the middle of it and be perfect at it. We set great big overwhelming goals which of course we can’t meet. We get discouraged by our “failures” instead of being encouraged by our small successes.

I’ve written the words “successive approximations” repeatedly for the past month or so. Just in case someone new runs across this and doesn’t know…..

When you train a puppy, you don’t walk up to the puppy and yell “Sit” and then beat the puppy when it doesn’t sit. That’s hardly motivational nor is it very nice. Yet don’t we do that to ourselves? “Exercise, Zaz!” I tell myself. “Do it every day!” And when I fail to live up to that or life gets in the way or whatever reason I don’t feel perfect enough, I beat myself up for being a failure.

You don’t wait to reward the puppy until he’s done the behavior perfectly. He’d get bored and we’d get mad. You stay enthusiastic with the puppy and make the training fun. You only train as long as the puppy can stay interested and you reward, reward, reward.

Just like we shape the puppy’s behavior and reward each small step, we need to shape our own behavior and seriously feel good and successful about each step we make in the direction of our goal.

Haider Al-Mosawi called this “Half Habits” and I like that concept.

Rather than trying to commit FULLY to a new habit, you simply take a step in its direction.

For example, instead of immediately joining a gym in order to become healthy, if your body has almost forgotten what “physical activity” means, incorporate a mini-exercise routine at home. That way, you don’t feel guilty that you’re not going to the gym every day, and you’re not taking something on that will be met with resistance. It’s a small adjustment that you won’t have difficulty keeping up.

An advantage to half habits is that you accept that you need to go through a transition period from old habit to new habit. You accept this as something natural and not a failing on your part.

Your focus then turns to the progress that you are making instead of the times you fall off the wagon!

“Oh great! I exercised four times this week!” instead of “OH MY GOD! I haven’t exercised for THREE days this week!”

So, as we’re reviewing last week’s goals and setting new goals for this week, think about half habits. I suggest reading the full “Two Simple Ways…” post. Consider where you can add new habits into your life painlessly. Would the way you’re trying to change your behavior work with a puppy?

Also, I have to add, that there are some people who do best by jumping into the new behavior. I’m not one of them! But I know that they exist. If that’s you, please consider writing about why that works for you!

Here’s the Action Plan – please feel free to copy it or to write your goal out a little more informally now that we’re used to the different parts of the plan.

In writing your action plan, be sure it includes

what you are going to do,
how much you are going to do,
when you are going to do it, and
how many days a week you are going to do it.

For example: This week, I will walk (what) around the block (how much) before lunch (when) three times (how many).

This week I will __________________________________ (what)

______________________________________________ (how much)

______________________________________________ (when)

______________________________________________ (how many)

How confident are you? (0% not confident at all – 100% totally confident without reservation)

Daily/Weekly review: comments, problem identification and solving.

I read a very interesting blog at Iowa Avenue this morning.  It talks about our reaction to foods we consider “forbidden” and about an “almost food disorder.”  It’s worth a read.  Check it out.