My meditation practice has been pretty solid for the past few months. I’ve been meditating off and on since 2017. According to the app I use I’m at just under a 50% consistently. That’s a little hot and cold, but when I’m in the groove I’m consistent. Right now I’m at 46 days in a row. I try not to think too much about the numbers. It’s easy to fetishize that, but I find it helps to motivate me.

My practice looks like this: I wake up, if it’s winter I turn on the heat, I check on my father, and then I sit on my meditation pillow. It’s pretty automatic when I’m in the groove.

I’d like to add working out and writing to my daily practice. I’ve read that “habit stacking” or “chaining habits” is a good way to add habits to your routine. To that end I’ll be moving my work outs to after my meditation. I find working out to be the easiest habit to fall out of. Too many excuses pop up: I’m tired, I’m hungry, I just ate, I don’t have time, yada, yada, yada. It’s amazing what my brain can come up with. I’m sure you have your own excuses.

This morning was pretty successful. After I meditated I worked out. Simple. Easy peasy. My writing fell by the wayside, but I’m not as worried about that. It’s not that it isn’t important to me, it’s just that I come up with fewer excuses not to write. Especially now since my goal is so low: 5 minutes. Yup, just 5 minutes. I’d like it to be more at some point, but starting small is a good idea. For me anyway. I’m just not going to bang out 1,000 words every day. If you’re trying to build a habit you may want to consider the same.

While reading my RSS feeds this morning on NetNewsWire I read a post by Manton Reece that linked to a post by Seth Godin about taking the leap to blogging everyday. I’ve gone back and forth on this, but given where I’m at with blogging and writing I’m going to aim for a post every day too. I suspect most post won’t be of much interest to people, but, like I’ve said before, this is really about me anyway.

So happy leap year to you. I hope you made a leap forward in some aspect of your life too.