Day 103 & An Improved Score on Duckworth's Grit Scale

Day 103 Record Keeping SRHI = 71
Day 71 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 72
Day 17 Burpee SRHI= 52 (1x6 and another later in the day for fun)
Day 117 Eating SRHI = 59 
Good sleep, good wakeup. Got depressed last night, busted past it.

Improved Grit Score

A while back I mentioned Angela Duckworth’s Grit Scale. I took the test, and was not surprised to find that I had exactly average grittiness (3.5 out of 5). 

Looking back, I’m actually shocked it wasn’t lower. The questions ask whether or not you complete tasks, or get side tracked, if you switch projects month to month, and if you’ve ever finished a task that took more than a year.

I have always been that guy - the one distracted by whatever excites me most. And I get excited by a lot - the problem is that dabbling doesn’t get me anywhere. I end up having specialized knowledge on many topics, but few skills, much less mastery, of them.

And this continued to be the case until the last few years. With my job I’ve managed to get a modicum of success after years of work. It has really been one of the few things that I’ve displayed true grit in. And that’s not at all surprising given this project came about from wondering why people aren’t good at more than one or two things.

With this habit project, one I’ve been working on for about a year, I’ve faced a lot of setbacks (all my habits have imploded several times). I’ve also started to build things slowly  - in 4 more day I’ll have been eating clean for 4 months - blowing away anything I’ve done in the past. I just celebrated 100 consecutive days of recording habits, also a first. This project has forced me to work on sticking with things over time rather than just in bursts.

As such I recognize a close relationship between this skill, what I’m calling Endurance, and what Duckworth calls Grit.

That being said - has this habit formation project changed my Grit? I just took the test again, and found that my Grit is now at 3.83. This might deviate with repeated taking of the test. And it is a small change from 3.5 - but long term change is what Grittiness is all about, isn’t it?

Take the test yourself HERE.

Day 91, Eating and Burpee Status Update

Day 91 Record Keeping SRHI = 70
Day 59 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 72
Day 5 Burpee SRHI= 42
Day 105 Eating SRHI = 58
Good night sleep, great wakeup.

Eating and Burpee Status

I feel generally back on track with eating. Will monitor carefully, because now I’m in uncharted territory - I’ve done eating habits and diets for 3 months, never for more, so this is really quite exciting. Yesterday I was thinking of habits that would help. I had in mind BJ Fogg’s Tinyhabits. Tinyhabits seem to work by lowering the threshold needed to endure a habit until it reaches full habituation. Hence his “brush one tooth” mentality.

What are some individual habits that make up eating right? I came up with several - making a salad or an omelette every morning. Cutting out anything but water. A shopping habit, since a lot of cheating involves not having material for cooking on hand. A cooking habit. Eating one clean meal a day. 

I’m thinking of these because, if my theory is correct, I’ll be sorely tested in these next three months. My theory that the universe conspires to throw a wrench in habits seems to be true for this one as I will be traveling for three weeks and will have to have a “travel protocol.” Again, the point isn’t perfection - the point is just surviving this period.

Also, I can’t help thinking about an ideal - if I were to do it again or teach someone else how to eat right, I’d definitely start with smaller steps - eating right is just way too complicated and is made up of many small habits. Doing it all it once seems highly untenable. But I’ve gotten this far, might as well charge on ahead.

I initially thought that I’d have to only do one habit at a time. And I still think this is generally a good idea. But with Tinyhabits, I have a sense that it’s not necessary. Which is why I’m continuing my burpee habit.

Lally’s graph extension indicated 250 days for a basic exercise habit. But employing implementation intention combined with the lightened Endurance load, I really feel it’s going to take a lot less time to achieve automaticity.  Which brings up another issue…

If these techniques change the full lifecycle of a habit, then it’s just one more variable that’s on a sliding scale. We’ll see, but it might be just that much more difficult to come up with a concise equation.