Once upon a time I had an idea.
When I say “I had an idea,” what I mean is a lot of people had ideas that got into my head and moshed around like the front quarter of the floor crowd at an Anthrax concert. After they’d bumped into each other long enough, those ideas formed a thing that was a little bit original, a lotta bit derivative, but inspiring to me.
I called the idea “austerities and celebrations.” It owes a lot to Dan Millman, Thich Nhat Hanh, Tom Callos and Ray Bradbury, plus NaNoWriMo and Movember. This will be the fourth year I’ve been doing them. By coincidence, the VOLT planner (called the SPARK planner last year) has a similar idea baked right into its structure and presentation. I want to challenge each of you to try these in the coming year. It works like this
Austerities
Choose a month. This month. Next month. Stop doing something for the whole month. What you stop doing really depends on your goals. You can do it to quit a habit you’ve meant to. Or to experiment with quitting a habit you’re not sure is good or bad for your life. Or to simplify your social calendar. Or anything else. A few of the things I’ve cut out during austerity months includes:
- Drinking soda
- Swearing
- Answering phone calls in real time
- Using, um, “adult” websites for recreation
- Drinking alcohol
- Screen time without somebody else participating with me
- Arguing on Facebook
- Eating fast food
- Spending money on new durable objects
My first austerity in 2017 was to say “no” to commitments I’m not truly excited about. I get offers literally every day, and I’ve found my family connections and work have been suffering from having too many hands on my time. I’ll be practicing “Hell yeah or no thanks.”
Some of these things I never picked back up. Others I took on because I liked my life better with them in. Others I recommenced just because the habit was stronger than the practice. The point isn’t really successfully eliminating something from your life forever. It’s getting enough distance from that thing to make an intentional, mindful decision about whether or not to welcome it back inside.
Celebrations
This is the opposite of the austerities. Take a month and every day, do something. This can be a habit you wish you had, or something you really like but don’t usually make happen. It could be daily progress toward a goal that’s really important, or that you just keep putting off. Aim for things that make your life better, or you think might make your life better. Here are a few of the celebrations I’ve commenced over the past years:
- Repair one small item in my house
- Play chess with my oldest son every night
- Write 500 words on a book project
- Meditate for 10 minutes in the morning
- Do the physical therapy exercises for a borked up knee
- Run a kata from kenpo or goju shori
- Wake up without hitting the snooze button
- Make an unsolicited FB contact with a distant friend
- Read a blog article about a topic I wish I knew more about
This month, my celebration is to make one step daily to get my finances in order. I’m not broke by a long stretch, but a combination of things has made my money a tangled rat’s nest. By taking one positive step forward each day, I’ll end the month with things clean and automated and simple like I like them.
As with the austerities, some celebrations became parts of my daily life. Others turned out to be less fun than I thought they would be, and are back to being just a thing I do once in a while. Others still let me cross something off my lifetime to-do list, never to enter my mind again. The point is building discipline with daily reminders to do stuff while improving the quality of my life for a month at a time.
We Are the Sum of Our Habits
Tony Robbins says we are the average of our five closest friends. I don’t know if that’s true — the influence of parents, siblings, mentors and personal heroes has a tidal effect even if our peers are the water we swim in. But I do believe that we are the sum of our daily habits.
Austerities and Celebrations are a way of looking hard at habits and deciding what to do about them. As Bruce Lee famously said of Jeet Kun Do, keep what serves you and ruthlessly eradicate everything that doesn’t.
Austerities and Celebrations are a way I’ve found to really up my game in carving myself into the person I want to become. I alternate between them: celebration in January, austerity in February, celebration in March, etc.
Maybe they’ll work for you. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll inspire you to do something similar to (or wildly different from) what I do and make your life a whole bunch better. But if you’re looking for something to try, why not give them a shot?
Comment here or hit me up on the Facebooks and let me know how it goes.
If I am the average of my five closest friends I am fucking awesome and should just not stir that pot!!