A story about how to and how not to create a habit

[A story about how to and how not to create a habit]

How do you make Spaghetti bolognese?

The person who can answer that question including ingredients, sourcing, timings, and process etc and has repeatedly practised it is largely unfazed by it if they need to produce it.

Ask a person who DOESN’T know how, to produce it within time constraints for their family on a busy evening with homework, tired kids, and all the trappings of life and they will most likely be stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, frustrated and it will require a lot of mental energy and resources.

So they probably won’t do it, regret it if they do and avoid it in future.

To go from incompetent (can’t make Spaghetti Bolognese) to competent (can) requires controlling a whole bunch of other things.

Perhaps choose a weekend.
Find a simple recipe.
Get the ingredients into the house.
Make sure you have the tools required.
Remove distractions.
Mentally walk through the steps required.
Make sure you have a back up meal.
Allow for double the required time.
Ask the family to support you.

Once you have done it once, calmly, the door is open for refinement. Increased time constraints, you’ll find small distractions less distracting. Soon you’ll be able to produce Spag Bol to a high level without thinking about it.

Your quality of life has gone up a little.

What improves our quality of life most though is the things we repeat daily.

Creating peacefulness, energy, sleep, health, having difficult but important conversations, creating a nice environment to live in, parenting.

Our quality of life seems to be determined by how well we have mastered the things that occur daily rather than some unique and unreachable skill or talent.

There are two ways to do this. One is in our head, on the fly while being showered by all of the demands of every day life.

The other is by mapping out the steps on paper. Systematically creating the environment for a controlled experiment just like we would if we wanted to guarantee the best possible chance of a successful Spaghetti bolognese.

The first way causes resistance in the future, the second a spirit of learning. Be careful which you create.