Hacking the SRHI?

My SRHI in Dynamic Meditation has jumped dramatically in only 3 days, as I mentioned before. This is a result of it being a “Continual Habit” - a task like posture, that should be spot checked repeatedly throughout the day.

Could this be applied to regular daily habits? I realize that the SRHI is meant to be a scale on habit formation. Does its accuracy go both ways? Can you hack the SRHI? That is to say if I manipulate aspects of the scale, does that in turn really result in a faster habit? 

For example, a number of questions in the SRHI relate to feeling weird if you DON’T do a habit. Well, I can’t really tell that until I don’t do it. So I’ll mark undecided. If I do miss a habit or at least delay it one day, and I do feel weird, my score increases. And this has happened in the past. Would a DELIBERATE missed or delayed habit result in faster habit formation?

Similarly would doing a task like…flossing for example, be quickly formed if I spent the first week flossing every hour during the day? There a number of questions regarding doing a habit before you realize you’re doing it - would waking up and doing a task while still bleary help with this? Telling as many people as possible that I’m a flosser might boost identity questions (“This task is typically me”) - would it actually make the habit form faster?

With this dynamic meditation habit it’s not just about the score - it really is shocking how automatic this is becoming. Now this might be for another reason. 

In a seminar I just watch on self help a speaker talked about meditation for pain and anxiety. The basic technique is to follow the anxiety and notice it - note its frequency, if it changes, its size, its texture, and if you keep up with this, it will start to diminish. This has worked with physical pain for me.

The point he made was that it’s an animal training thing. If you train an animal based on the basics - pain=bad, pleasure=good, you get results fast because that’s how we’re wired.

I’m in a profound sense doing this - if I can train myself to not go down paths of negativity in my head, I feel better. So, it’s not surprising that it’s a fast response to train.

So who knows if it would carryover to things like flossing, that don’t have such an immediate pleasure/pain result. This is something I’ll definitely have to try out.

A New New Plan (and a Ridiculous Habit)

Based on my thoughts from the last post here’s what I’m going to do.

My two current “habits” - 750words and my kettlebell habit are in shambles. Last week I did a SRHI test and both were hovering in the low 40s (remember, this is out of 74).

So I’m scrapping both of them and starting…sigh…completely from scratch.

The first habit I’m going to implement is -  and I realize this sounds ridiculous - recording my habits. Every day. 

It’s something that I’ve had problems with since day 1. It’s even a problem among the professional researchers, who couldn’t get their participants to keep consistent records or do SRHI tests regularly.

I have no idea what number of days to peg this at. I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be more difficult than it looks, but we’ll see. I’ll need to take the SRHI regularly - I’m thinking once a week? I don’t know if taking it every day will show anything but I suppose I can try that at first.

I’m uncertain as to whether I will also be including blogging as recording, though I think that is a good idea. Would I blog once a week and try to make that into a habit, or go for the everyday thing? Every day isn’t really an optimal thing for blogs usually, but then again this isn’t for blogging, it’s for record keeping and keeping track of things.

Completely Stalled Out

I’ve completely stalled out on this project. 

The first thing to get over my frustration is to realize that this is bound to occur - just like it did on 750 words - gaining a handle on anything worthwhile almost requires moments of extreme frustration and loss of focus.

Secondly, I need to remember why I’m doing this. I have a deep desire within me to master a number of skills related to several fields. To me not attempting to master these skills would be tantamount to giving up a part of who I am. I consider this integral to my identity.

Furthermore, this method of habit formation is the only way in my mind to even attempt mastery at them. I’ve seen how some people amble about, cycling enthusiastically through interests without getting anywhere with any of them long term. Hell, that’s how I’ve been most of my life. I’ve seen books that talk about how you can learn a skill in 20 hours or some other short time - to me this isn’t mastery or habit formation.  I want the beast itself not some simulation of it. Therefore this is the only way to go.

Thirdly, I need to know why I failed. I failed for good reasons - moving countries, a death of a close friend, a very long illness, depression, etc. But everyone has reasons. A reason doesn’t magically make it all better. 

Fourthly I need to know what to do now. For me one of the biggest problems was not being able to record my items of habituation. Recording is important because it keeps one level of distance away from the grind of doing a habit - it also keeps you motivated and is a constant reminder of what you need to do for course correction.

My records were shoddy - I would record some days - I would leave swaths unrecorded and then recover my info later and quickly instead of giving the process its due. Recording my habit keeps me in touch with the entire project and keeps it real for me. Looking back, I’ve had problems with record keeping since the beginning, and this got worse as the habit formation got harder - which is not a good thing. Recording - seeing the swath of days where I kept the habit vs not kept the habit is the seat of change for this entire project. 

Also in that vein I need to write more on this blog. I think I haven’t been doing so because I want to keep it blog like - I want to get a picture and keep it short - but the truth is the purpose of this blog is like the record keeping - it keeps me in touch with the project. A picture isn’t needed, it’s extra, as is a bite sized blog post of 200 words, or paying attention to spelling and grammar. What is necessary is note keeping for the project, so I can look back and know what was going on week to week and how I can learn from it.

National Novel Writing Month Problems

My 750 word habit is rock solid. So I’ve decided to push it in several ways. Before I did this by getting various badges - one for not being distracted, the other for speed of writing. I feel doing this is a way to stretch the habit in it’s grooves, to go through the pain period of not just letting it lie, but by doing more.

I feel my first real challenge has been these last 4 days of National Novel Writing Month, where participants are invited to write a novel (50,000 words) in one month - the idea is to just write freely, not to have something that’s perfect.

I think this is fantastic - it’s even supported on 750words as a badge on the site. But this is a sizable problem for me because it’s almost triple my word count per day for 30 days.

This has caused a number of small problems. For one, it’s harder to get started on this at the beginning of the day - I end up putting it off - a problem I only had at the beginning of forming the habit originally. The second is that it has been throwing off my kettle bell workout routine - because I delay at my writing I delay, sometimes ignore completely my other habit. Thirdly my mood has been pretty irritable - I’ve been subject to more bouts of sadness and anger. Lastly, I’m starting to get a bit shoddy when it comes to tracking my progress.

This is all minor - and luckily it all seems to fit with my theories on habit formation. I’m entering that quarter of the way mark on the exercise habit and when I look at my spreadsheets now it looks like my spreadsheets for 750 words during the quarter of the way mark. 

I’m countering this by being more strict about writing as soon as I get up. IN fact that may be a great technique for any habit that is shaky - doing it as soon as you get up. I’ve been countering my moods by going on walks, which tends to get my blood flowing - it’s been such a great way of loosening up that I’m thinking about making that a separate habit.