Daily Habits - Building My New System

When I first tried giving up alcohol, I purely relied on abstinence. I was dry. I was not drinking, but I was not healing. I was walking sideways. And I failed. Within 45 days, I had convinced myself I needed a drink. I needed that old friend to have a good time. 

I did not have a plan. I did not make moves forward. But this time around, sitting at 440 days when writing this, I leaned into a plan. I created a new plan. I created a new system to replace my old rituals. I was fortunate enough that I had my group and individual sessions through my IOP program for the first several months. Through that program, I was given tools to replace my old habits and rituals. After that program ended, I was so busy that I leaned into the chaos of life to stay on track. But my sideways movement started up again. 

When I hit a year sober, I began to realize it was time to move forward again. But how? I am alone now. It is my responsibility and my life. I had to figure out how to move forward using the tools I had learned and build a system that worked for me. A system that would work to help me move forward. So, I did some internal research. I started writing. I started listening to my own thoughts. I started exploring my thoughts and feelings again just like we were taught to do in IOP. 

What I came up with was that I needed to work on my important daily habits, my nonnegotiables, to help build my system. My daily nonnegotiable habits include:

• Morning System

• Get up at 5am: immediately brush my teeth and wash my face.

• Stretch and complete a 10-15 minute light workout on my yoga mat

• Read one summary on Headway

• Journal

• Gratitude

• Intention

• My Thoughts (Brain Dump)

• Affirmation

• Afternoon Routine

• Directly after work: Run/10-15 min row workout

• Healthy Snack

• Check-in with kids

• Read personal fun book

• Read to kids

• Hydrate!!!

• Bedtime System

• Gratitude/Reflection Journal

• Read

• Go to sleep by 10pm

I chose to break down my systems into the three parts of my day in which I have the most control. My main focus and my super nonnegotiable is my morning system. At first, I found it difficult to get out of bed. I was hitting snooze and hitting snooze again. Then I read the Headway summary of Mel Robbins’ The 5-Second Rule. I started using this tool to push through the tough or non preferred activities in the morning. So, when my alarm goes off at 5am, I immediately say, ¨5, 4, 3, 2, 1¨ and this switches my brain into DO mode. It seems silly and cliched, but it works! I have started using this in all areas of my life and it has decreased my procrastination by a TON! 

So far, my new daily systems are working. They are ever evolving and that will keep my movement forward. Becoming stagnant is where I find myself in the sideways hustle. I will focus on my daily habits and over time they will become a practice, then turn into second nature, and then these small daily habits will just become who I am. When I am finding myself wanting to stray, I will ask myself, ¨does skipping this habit serve my end game?¨ In other words, if I skip my workout today, will that affect who I will be at the end of the year? 5 years? 10 years? Just as little habits stack up and build, so do the skips, so do the ¨I will do it tomorrows¨. 

"The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit."

- James Clear