habit change - brilliantlegalmind.com

Image of a post it note with the phrase "habit is persistence in practice" and the title of the blog post that says "How to Recover When Your Mediation Habit Gets Sloppy"

In January, my habit tracker showed nice long streaks for meditation. I was laser focused on starting the year strong and practiced mindfulness each day. Now, it’s halfway through February and my meditation practice is a bit of a mess. What is a lawyer to do?

Well, this lawyer is a mindfulness teacher who has been meditating for over a decade. This is not my first rodeo when it comes to a less than perfect meditation practice.

In case you are wondering, here are the three proven steps I will take to get my meditation practice back on track. I also offer three supports you can consider if you need a little bit more help getting your own habit back in order.

1. Lawyers Are Busy, So Don’t Panic or Beat Yourself Up.

The first thing that many people do when they notice a habit slipping is to beat themselves up. I encourage you to avoid this trap. Yes, meditation is an important practice. Yes, it offers many benefits.

These truths can easily cause high achievers like lawyers take their practices very seriously. And that seriousness can lead to self-criticism and even spiraling when the habit is not easily maintained.

Don’t take the bait. Instead, be practical and realistic. For most lawyers and professionals, it is not realistic to expect perfection with any healthy habit. Instead, it makes more sense to think about what we do most days.

If you criticize yourself every time you miss, that won’t motivate you to get back to practice any more quickly. Instead, it will induce hopelessness and shame. This is why the best thing you can do when you notice your meditation habit slipping is to avoid panic and self-judgment.

2. Identify the Impediment to Meditation Practice

When you can bring some neutrality to the situation, it is possible to next review the situation practically. Looking at things from a place of self-compassion, it is easier to see that most of us don’t skip on healthy habits because we are undisciplined or don’t care.

Instead, for lawyers and professionals, the culprit is more likely to be a practical impediment. This is why the next step in the process is to review the things that are getting in the way of meditation.

This might include schedule changes or a hectic period at work. It could also include events in your personal life that create a resistance to practice. Even though meditation can be a great way to process complex emotions or care for yourself, doing so during tough times can be a challenge. Acknowledging this kind of resistance as a human reality may help you work through it.

Other potential impediments could be even easier to address. You may consider, for example, if there is anything you don’t like about the experience of meditation. Then you can consider how you can make the practice a bit more pleasant to get yourself to the cushion.

Ultimately, most people don’t skip meditation because they don’t care about the benefits. Instead, problem-solving the issue from the habit formation level may help you figure get your practice back on track.

Image listing the three steps to Get Your Meditation Habit Back on Track shared in the post, including don't judge yourself or panic, identify the impediment to practice, and just get back to practice.

3. Come Back to Meditation Practice

In truth, you don’t need the first two steps every time you miss a meditation session or get off track with practice for a few days. Instead, the more efficient route may be to just come back to meditation practice.

This may be the most essential lesson from basic breath practice: you can always begin again. Just like there is always another breath to note, there is always another day to come back to meditation.

You don’t have to apologize or make amends. You just start practicing again the same way you did the very first time. That’s the beauty of meditation. It’s always there for you when you need it even if you have been away from practice for a while.

If you have missed practice for a long time, it may be best to ease back into it. I suggest starting small to give yourself time to rebuild the habit. But you may find that you can increase your time more quickly than you could when you were new to practice. Either way, there is no need to rush because meditation is a practice for life.

In the end, the way to maintain a consistent habit is to not give up on the habit when you miss a day, a week, or longer. The best way to get back on track is to just come back to meditation practice.

But What If The Steps Above Aren’t Enough?

After more than a decade of meditation, I can tell you that sometimes getting back to practice is easy and sometimes it is hard. In the easy cases, the three steps above or just step three alone are enough.

For hard cases, you may need some more support. Sometimes we stop meditating due to massive schedule or life changes, personal loss or difficulty, or even health-related conditions that make practice a challenge.

If you are really struggling to get back to regular meditation despite a desire to do so, you may consider the following three steps to support yourself.

1. If Needed, Reflect on What Meditation Offers to Your Life.

When I need motivation to get my habits back on track, I instinctively look to my intention. If your meditation practice is struggling, one way to help yourself recover is to consider if your intention has changed.

This happens with meditation from time and time and it may not be a bad sign. When I first started meditating, my fundamental aim was dealing with stress. I just wanted to rest and find some relief from all my copious thoughts.

After a few years, though, meditation helped me and the thoughts gradually slowed down. I had to rethink why the practice mattered to me. When I did, I realized that my new focus was to create a refuge for myself to deal with the challenges of everyday life.

The reality is that most lawyers don’t meditate to get really good at meditation or because we think we will become enlightened. Instead, we do it because we want benefits in our lives outside of meditation.

For this reason, it can help to reflect every so often on the ways that meditation supports your life. Once you are clear about your reasons for practice, it may be easier to bring yourself back to regular practice.

Image defining a habit as "a pastime that becomes a regular part of your life because you don’t give up on even though you repeatedly fail to do it perfectly or as much as you want"

2. If Needed, Get Support from a Meditation Teacher or Community.

As I have written many times before, a teacher or community support a meditation practice more than anything else. I know that for many lawyers and professionals, it may be a practical necessity to meditate alone most of the time.

It definitely takes more time to meet up with others at a course or retreat to meditate and it may take some work to find a teacher. Even so, that investment of time is worth even for the busiest lawyers.

If you are struggling with your meditation practice, a great way to refresh it is to get some support. Taking a course, doing a retreat, or finding a meditation group can help you get needed direction. It can also make the practice feel less lonely and more fun.

So, if you practice is struggling, a great way to bring it back it get help from a teacher or a community.

3. If Needed, Here’s a Worksheet to Help You Rework Your Meditation Habit.

For major life or schedule changes, you may also need to rethink how meditation fits into your life. That is something that most lawyers and professionals can expect to do from time to time.

Even subtle schedule changes cause by shifts in family or work obligations can throw wrenches into our normal systems. Instead of thinking of yourself as an undisciplined failure as noted above, it makes more sense to think practically about how the system works.

If you need help restructuring your daily meditation practice, you might check out the guide I wrote here. You can also download the meditation habit worksheet to find ways to make the practice more obvious, satisfying, and easy to do.

Conclusion: Meditation Is a Practice for Life, So Lawyers Can Expect Times of Ebb and Flow.

If you meditate for long enough, you are bound to face disruptions with your normal habits. This is a reality that most lawyers and professionals will face as they navigate life and work changes and busy lives. If you meditation practices gets off track, you can use the steps and supports identified in this post to recover.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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This week, you may be one of many people trying Dry January for the first time. You may even have your sights set on the longer-term goal of 300/65, which limits drinking days to 65 for the year. Last year, I wrote about my experience trying Dry January for the first time and was surprised at how little I struggled with it. Like a lot of people, being at home social distancing during the pandemic had helped me develop some less than ideal habits, including drinking too frequently. By the time I tried Dry January, I was ready for it and I liked the results so much that I decided to do 300/65 too.

I had an amazingly productive year in 2021 and think that examining my use of alcohol helped to power that progress. If you are thinking about suspending or limiting your use of alcohol in January or for 2022, here are some practical steps that may help support your habit change.

1. Start on the right foot.

One thing that helped me a lot in January, 2021 was that I had a meditation retreat planned for the days around New Years Eve. On most retreats, participants refrain from using any substances, including alcohol, that can impair the mind. While I had planned on doing the retreat well before I decided to commit to Dry January, it was a very happy accident for me. The retreat got me out of my house for a few days and gave me some distance from my habitual patterns. It also kept me focused so that I didn’t even think about alcohol. While we can’t always start the new year with a retreat, you can structure the first few days or week to support your goals. If you get off to a good start, it may make the whole process much easier.

2. Get the booze out of sight (or out of the fridge).

I’m a beer drinker most of the time, so the first thing I did to prepare for Dry January was to take the beer out of the fridge. This was a tactical decision that made it harder for me to cave if a craving hit me. After I got through January and committed to 300/65, I decided to just not keep beer around the house. I also redecorate my formal dining room to accept it’s real use in my family: a craft room for the kids. Just to make space, I decided to move the liquor and wine to the basement, a space I only visit when I have a particular need to do so. The unintended benefit of this decision was that I wasn’t constantly reminded of the presence of alcohol in my house. With these subtle changes, it was a lot easier to not even think about drinking.

3. Be a scientist instead of a judge.

I am not the most disciplined person in the world. I’m actually a bit skeptical of discipline since I have tended to be too rigid with myself in the past, which inevitably ended up making myself rebel against all restrictions. But, I am naturally curious. Late in 2020, I started to wonder about my drinking and realized that only life experience could answer the questions I had about it. So, I treated Dry January, not as a referendum on my willpower or quality as a human, but instead as an experiment. Instead of a gold star, each day was another data point. I evaluated that data like a scientist and at the end of the month decided I needed to experiment further with 300/65. When I started drinking again, I made a point log the day as one on which I drank and note how the alcohol affected me. Sometimes it enhanced the experience, like when I shared a drink with a friend or had a nice wine with a favorite meal. Sometimes it just made me feel sluggish or not sleep well or gave me a headache. These data points helped me better appreciate that costs and benefits of using alcohol and to factor that in when I was deciding whether to drink or not.

4. Encourage accountability.

If you are trying to change a habit, one thing is clear: you can’t rely on willpower alone. Willpower is like a muscle; it gets tired. If you have to rely on self-control for your other daily activities (and most lawyers do), it can make you even more susceptible to cravings. Accountability can help this by forcing you to keep the consequences of your choices at the front of your mind. Using Try Dry or another app or tracking your dry and drinking days on a calendar or journal can help you keep yourself honest. If you need external accountability, set up a plan to check in regularly with a friend who can support your goals.

5. Plan for cravings.

Even if you take all the steps above, it is likely that cravings will still arise for you. Therefore, it may be best to have a plan of attack for responding when that happens. I did this by going shopping for tasty alcohol-free beverages before Dry January started. I intentionally looked for new things to try, so the fun of trying something new could remind me that disrupting habits had a good side. I also made a point of being kind to myself and avoiding self-judgment when a craving arose. One of the most common craving times for me happened when I cooked, since I loved to have a glass of wine while preparing meals. Looking for an enhancement that was neither food or beverage, I started listening to music or audiobooks while I cooked. It was just as, if not more, relaxing and it kept my mind off the drink I wasn’t having.

6. Be prepared for feelings.

While most people who try Dry January or 300/65 are likely to first notice physical changes, it is possible that you may notice emotional differences too. Because alcohol is a depressant and is often used for the purpose of relaxing, it is possible that you may notice an increase in emotions when you limit it or stop using it. I noticed this myself during 2021 and simply relied on my other stress management strategies, including meditation, yoga, warm baths, hot tea, and talking to friends and family. On tough days, I did a combination of these things. Though it’s always difficult to deal with stress, the experience of caring for my emotions with healthy strategies cultivated personal confidence, strength, and helped me get to know myself even better.

Changing habits is a tough thing to do. As I have written about before, changing habits relating to alcohol can be especially tricky, since shame and self-judgment can always arise. If you give yourself appropriate supports and a healthy perspective while attempting Dry January or 300/65, it may not just help you find success with your goals but also experience less difficulty while you pursue them.