I am blatantly stealing this from My 21 Days in the hope that we will be able to support and motivate each other. I find that I do better at this sort of thing with a buddy.
The idea is that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. I have a lot of habits that I would like to break, and there are a lot that I would like to make. The goal will be to do several cycles of 21 days, each time making a good habit or breaking a bad one.
I also believe very strongly in rewarding myself for things. I do tend to over-reward, though, so I think it would be good to set a reward per 21-day cycle rather than per day. I’ll allow myself up to $50 per reward.
I thought this would be a good place to start my list of habits to work on. This is tentatively my order that I will be using. It may change as I progress through this.
1. Biking every day. I live in a winter wonderland more than half the year, so if the weather outside is uncooperative for commuter biking, I have a stationary bike as back-up. I’m not going to set any parameters on how long or far I have to bike. That may be a future cycle. (No pun intended!) I think at least 5 minutes will count. The reward here will be some sort of biking accessory.
2. Stop biting my nails. Dear Lord this one will be hard. I’ve been biting my nails as long as I can remember. I’m fairly certain I went straight from thumb-sucking to nail-biting. The reward here will be a manicure, of course.
3. Yoga. This one will have a specific time on it. I will do at least 30 minutes of yoga every day. The reward here will be clothing of some sort. Pants I think.
4. Boxing. Again, a specific time. I will do at least 15 minutes of boxing every day. The reward here will be clothing again. A top this time to show off my awesome lateral delts.
5. Food. I decided to push this down the list a bit because it’s harder. I will stop eating processed food and refined sugars and flour and such. I will go macrobiotic. Reward will be a kitchen gadget.
6. Jogging. I have never in my life been able to run, and I want to start. Reward here will be something electronic or something like DVDs or CDs.
7. Sleep. I need to maintain a regular sleep cycle. 7-9 hours per night waking at the same time every morning. No naps. Reward will be a massage.
8. Education. I’d like to be more knowledgeable about things. Learn something new every day. Reward will be books.
9. Caloric intake. I wasn’t restricting calories earlier, just the type of food. This time I’ll determine my ideal daily caloric requirements and stay within 200 calories of it, low or high. Reward will be more kitchen gadgets!
10. Cleaning. I will make sure my home is presentable every evening before bed, doing laundry and dishes and such as needed. Reward will be a new game for game night.
I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!
