Surviving WFH Ep 5

Perception- Its a powerful force!- It only takes 12 weeks :)

From the last post I mentioned perceivable change and if your mind and body doesn't perceive change then what could be considered a change (going from working from home back to the office) ends up being just part of a normal day. It take approximately 12 weeks to make something routine. Its why gyms and fitness gurus throughout the ages always try to rope you in for at least a 12 week fitness challenge.

Lets break it down- Individual dependent, even for the most motivated individual the first couple of weeks of trying something new the mind and body are working against your will power to add this foreign activity into its highly efficient means of operation. It is especially true as an individual ages- try asking your grandfather to sleep in on a Saturday.

Weeks 3-6 though, you are beginning to chip away at those walls of the old routine. Your mind and body are starting to make slight adjustments to keep an optimized system online-because with you and all of your new found willpower want to go and disrupt everything your body has tried sooooo hard to optimize...

Weeks 8-12 are the most crucial- I cant tell you how many times since Ive started my hyper commuting that I say I will do x amount of foreign language learning lessons on my train ride(you might as well pass the time with something productive.. ). Ive even been flexible.. AM or PM commute... however, something always comes up- either its I decided I would move a particular days lesson to the PM commute because I got hooked on a YouTube or some other streaming binge and surprise surprise.... 8 "mandatory" new meetings were added to my calendar 5 min after getting to the office and now I have to either stay late or work on the train coming home- missing that days lesson all together :( .

Even missing a day or 2 in these 8-12 weeks can disrupt the routine, usually its no more than from an internalized self destructive mechanism of feeling guilty bc you were doing soooo good. So to disconnect and feel better... you end up scrolling through Instagram just for a quick escape but then feel worse about yourself after seeing countless enhanced photos of influencers' best lives in Bali quoting " #liveyourbestlife and #it only gets better..."

What if there was way to ACTUALLY live your best life and avoid living someone else's and slipping into even worse habits than before.