
It started with remembering I was a Rebel, as defined by Gretchen Rubin’s
“The Four Tendencies”
At the time, the revelation had changed my life.
But the understanding of what it meant had been incomplete.
And now, reading all the Rebel chapters in her book about The Four Tendencies, I realized that as charming as all the little tweaks and anecdotes were;
In my case, it was beside the point.
As tempting as it was to study this book, from now on, daily! To really learn by heart how I COULD become successful and make up for that unproductive as f year 2020 (not to mention all years from 2018 and up);
That was not the way.
I could not afford to micromanage this.
I didn’t need Gretchen Rubin to see something was very wrong.
And as far as needing the book to improve it, I also did not have to look much further;
I knew what the problem was.
For the past few years, starting in 2018 I had started to implement success habits, as in daily habits and planning.
I know the year because in 2017 I made a mind blowing accomplishment that had not involved any planning.
It had been this habit of planning my days, which had resulted in my productivity bottoming out. Every morning I had said No to inspiration, basically No to God!
Because: I had a to do list.
Although I sinned (created) about half of the days, creating, writing, had felt like something bad.
I needed to do something real.
On other days I did “successfully” refrain from writing and creating off the cuff.
I was successful at telling myself:
“No creating! I have enough videos/ ideas/ projects/ blogs! We need to start monetizing it!”
Read: make books, think about programs, teach yoga courses. Putting all that previously created older content to use or processing it to something “real”.
I wanted to be more consistent posting to social media, but it felt all so draining to me. There are many ways to do this, and I hated them all.
For example: Having automatic/ scheduled posting going on, when you are not online yourself, felt like having a pot on the stove with the fire on, when you are not in the house.
It was very unsettling to have a robot version of you posting your stuff, when you are not there.
It felt like an energetic leak.
But it was not just business, I had the same thing going on with yoga:
I made about 365 resolutions a year to do daily yoga, and yet I have rolled out my mat (aside from teaching) about ten times a year.
2018 to now were the years my practice almost completely flatlined, and I gained 10 kilos from emotional eating.
I have done yoga once or twice, in 2021.
The number of notebooks I have been using has increased exponentially. If only; I would map out my daily routines.
If only; I would tick my tasks off one by one.
If only; I would work for a small amount of time on the big projects I wanted to accomplish.
I have been a writer under pen name for over a decade, and publishing those books, bringing them to print, is an example of a big project, that according to about every theory on success, would get done if I would just get the habit ingrained to start and do a little bit each day.
The book The Miracle Morning, which is a huge success and has helped a lot of people to start their day with one super productive hour doing 5 different activities, illustrates this school of thought that the habit of doing meditation, yoga, journaling, exercise and so on, for just ten minutes, will get you there.
So I can’t emphasize enough that my response to The Miracle Morning, now that I know myself better, is not how most people respond to this!
It really is a very helpful and inspiring book to most.
But I would rather stab myself in the eye with a fork, than to start my day doing 5 different activities in one hour.
I have not seen this anywhere (which explains why it took me so long to engineer backwards how I have reached my success in the past!) but instead of daily habits?
I would go for Entire Day Absorbed In One Thing habits.
Ultimately, I have fixed this problem differently!
More on my solution later.
But IF I would still adopt a planning method?
It would be making myself choose ONE desk activity a day.
I can spend the whole day writing out my finances and getting my admin in order.
Or I can spend it doing correspondence and cleaning out my Inbox.
Or I can spend the day writing a blog post.
Or publishing my books under my pen name.
Or offline writing a book on yoga.
But it can be only one activity.
Not ten.
And certainly not five in one hour.
By the way, The Miracle Morning routine is a free time/ self-care routine, and does not include activities that have to do with your work/ desk job or business.
But for my exercise or journaling, the same thing goes as for my business.
I like to play with my notebooks for hours, or study for hours, and every day I go out for a walk or bike ride and I rarely make it back in under two hours.
So the reason I use The Miracle Morning as an example, is because the chop up your day and do little pieces method does not work for me, regardless if it’s for something in my free time or more business like.
So reading those chapters from Gretchen Rubin, and ready to dive in and dissect which mental trick or reframing I could use to bypass my rebellious nature to not do things I intend to do, it suddenly flashed before my eyes how absolutely ZERO productive the recent years had been!
That the harder I planned, and pushed and the more determined I made my resolutions;
The less I got done.
There were no measurable results, as mental growth results are not included in productivity models!
The only thing I could measure was how often I had failed.
Which was 365 days a year.
I realized that even if I did manage to hack my way around my natural resistance to not do things, I would still be going so incredibly slow!
Just imagine having a child that is a Rebel, and having to find a way to make it brush its teeth, eat good food, do its homework, and so on and so forth.
You would need to reframe every.single.thing. into a choice, into something the child wants to do instead of you making it.
Whereas I, an already tooth brushing adult with all my diplomas and decades of experience as a yoga teacher under my belt know:
It is when I plan nothing, that I do everything.
It is when my day is totally free of things that I “have to” do, that life, or God, takes over, and everything falls into place.
But you need to let go.
Of the planning.
Of the wanting.
Of the systems.
Of the structure.
Because you are so blocking the way of life flowing through you, when you are questioning everything, planning everything, wondering about the hows, and worrying how on earth you are going to step by step go for the life of your dreams that seems so far off.
If I think about where I am going, I know for a fact that no planning method is ever going to get me there.
None.
It is humanly impossible to ever “get” there.
You know why?
Because you need to let go and go with God.
Thy will, not your will.
Let Him work through you, trust in Him, and let Him show you the way.
How’s that for a miracle morning.
.
Suzanne L. Beenackers
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