I love coffee. I never used to drink it until about a year ago, because I knew it would be an endless feedback loop: 1. start drinking coffee and feel amazing 2. adapt & be in a bad mood if I didn’t get my morning coffee. But here I am, enjoying and sometimes needing a cup or two in the morning. Specifically a vanilla or maple latte or a cappuccino. Lol. Part of my desire is the pleasure of a delicious tasty drink to enjoy while sitting and being productive, and then there’s the desire for a pick me up when working.
Why Have Rules
Nevertheless, coffee is not something I want to consume uncontrollably. I like constraint around it. And so the idea came to me, I’m only allowed to drink coffee after I’ve meditated for the day. I took a behavior I wanted to make a little harder to access (coffee), and a behavior I wanted to increase my frequency of (meditation), and merged the two together. So far, it’s been a huge success! I’ve meditated 40 days in a row seemingly effortlessly, and I usually don’t consume coffee for the first 2 hours of the day because of the constraint.
This isn’t the first time I have tried to implement a rule that changes my behaviors. On the contrary, I feel like I’ve tried every version of rules known to man to try and change my behaviors, most frequently to either stop or reduce my smoking of weed or stop me from eating junk. (Side note, I have been clean from weed for about 1 year now, my proudest adult–life accomplishment). So I’m very familiar with years of trying to implement rules, mostly failing at them. Why was this one different? I am not 100% sure. I think it’s because a. It’s easy and b. I want to do it.
Making It Easy
I am a strong believer in consistency over perfection, that we should lower the bar of counting something as a success. In this case, it means that 1 minute of meditation counts! I did it!
Why does this matter? First of all, it creates an unbelievably strong case to invalidate any excuse that I don’t have the time. Can I really not find 1 minute, or 30 seconds, to close my eyes and take some deep breaths focusing on being in the present moment?
Secondly, it builds momentum and consistency. I meditated yesterday, I can do it today. As we do these behaviors more and more, they become more and more a part of us, and over time they’ll come naturally to us without even a second or conscious thought. It doesn’t matter if you meditated for 30 seconds or 10 minutes, what matters is how frequently you make the effort to do so, however small.
Since we’re on the topic, this applies to more things than meditating. This applies to any goal in my opinion. You want to work out more? Great. Do 1 pushup. You may laugh. Ha, 1 push up will do nothing! Ok, so instead you’ll do 0? Sure you’re right, do 5, do 10, do 15, but don’t do 0. Do the same with a squat tomorrow. Everything great and big starts with something small. Consistency is the momentum that will make greatness. Focus on that and large meaningful results will come over time.
Making It Easy
Secondly, I like the rule. Coffee can be my nitrous, what helps me get up and go, do the damn work. But being effective is all about moving efficiently in the consistently right direction. So, what good is nitrous if my wheels are spinning, or if I’m swerving behind the wheel? My meditation helps assure me that prior to hitting the boost button, I’m a little more centered, my wheels are aligned, and that I’m going to go far and straight.
I clearly want to both increase my meditation and decrease listless coffee intake. Will I stick with this habit forever? I have no way of predicting that, but I don’t see why not, and I hope so!
Living A Cool Life 