Ditch The Resolution Habit

I, perhaps like many, started the year with a list of New Years Resolutions. Some were extensions of things I had started in 2010 and others developments of good ideas towards committing to a real action plan to achieve them over the coming months; a mix of the personal, professional, creative and social.

• Maintain running with the Run in England club on Saturdays
• Eat less and better; when sat at the desk able to graze the fridge, note to self to buy less rubbish and grow even more veggies in the garden
• Maintain and reward the working relationships from last year
• Nurture new professional relationships within the sector and amongst local and regional artists
• Keep work patterns to Tuesday-Thursday and to this end leave studio time for Monday/Friday and weekend bursts
• Make new work within the colour-chemistry research I have started and my ideas towards the archaeology of marks

Mindful of the pace of transition, I planned for small step changes and the need to rehearse and repeat a new thought or behaviour several times before it feels comfortable or the synaptic bypasses are created in the brain to reroute past an old habit. I wrote them down, turned them into a positive action and gave a sense of commencing and completion with an idea of what success looks like so as to measure progress and achievement.

However, I was physically reminded this week from a knee aggravation from wearing a swanky new pair of trainers for running, of the challenge of changing old habits be they physical or psychological. The correction of my slight pronation was causing a new set of muscles, the correct set of muscles and tendons to be turned on and work, when they had not been used to exercise. I was literally running at a new way of moving too quickly; suffering a physical stress and feeling less than successful and put off from returning and maintaining this new discipline.

Moving from a comfort zone of; “always doing what you have always done, to get what you have always got” to a stretch (of innovation or transformation) it is clear to find the correct amount of stretch and not overreach to a point of stress that it is so far out of the current experience it can be overwhelming or damaging.

Given some physiotherapy, exercises to practice and to support the re-training of a new physical habit, I was reassured to reflect on the progress made with my other new ways of seeing, thinking and doing. To readjust their scope with this new compassion for previously failing at changes and ‘grand new’ schemes and modify an annual approach to a continuous appraisal.

I am reminded of a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for continuous improvements.