It has been a while since I wrote or shared anything online. If you have been with me on your health journey for a while, you may know I have been away from 'the internet' for about a year because I had a baby. If you have signed up for my blog or newsletter in the past year, you may have wondered a while back why that first email or post never came... As it turns out, I have been struggling with my habits and routines in the past year… What? A habits coach struggling with habits? Yep. It happens to me too :-).

Since welcoming a new human (Nym, that's my daughter) into the world, life turned on its head,
and my habits have gotten severely shaken up. I used to be called 'the focus crocus' by friends and colleagues, being able to stay on task with razor sharp attention. But during the first 6 months of being a mum, my brain seemed like an ocean of ever changing sensations just coming in and out of my awareness without any way to really control the waves. If you are not a parent and/or are not interested in becoming one, you may be wondering if this is going to be yet another post on parenthood. But bear with me. This post is not about becoming a parent. Its about how you navigate big changes when trying to build healthy habits, which is important for everyone, because big changes happen to everyone.

After Nym was born, what used to be a daily morning routine including a walk/run in the park, an hour of yoga / crossfit, meditation, breathwork, and journaling, now became "if I can manage to sit down for a minute and take a breath that's a bonus". Don't get me wrong, I have been
enjoying parenthood A LOT and I am fully present and connected when I am with Nym, BUT, getting back to focused work and a regular morning routine have been difficult and have required a serious execution plan. So, as a first post, I wanted to share my story in the hopes that it will help you to be kind(er) to yourself if you ever have a time in your life when your habits seem to crash or when you just can't make it work, AND share how I got back on track to help you believe that you too, can and will get back on track even if right now or in the future, it may feel like that will never ever happen.

Habit formation comes with seasons.

When I realized getting my habits back wasn't going to be as easy as I had hoped, luckily for me, I knew how to deal with that because I created a whole audio session on the topic of dealing with big changes in my audio course 'Becoming- Building Sustainable Habits'. The great thing about my work is that I get to study these topics in depth in order to teach them to others, which comes in VERY handy when I myself am completely off track. The downside is that this increases the pressure to do good with your habits because "you re the expert so why on earth aren't you just doing it!" But dealing with the inner critic is a topic for another blogpost ;-).

The gist of that audio session on the seasons of habit formation is this: Sometimes, we have good seasons, where water is plentiful, sun shines bright, and our motivation and energy are high. This is when old habits grow fast, and new habit seeds are planted. Unfortunately, in these seasons, without being aware of it, we set new expectations. Our new high energy high motivation habit garden becomes the standard, and when we hit a dry season, we expect
ourselves to perform at this same level.

If you consistently practice habit formation and you are in a place in the world with seasons, you will start noticing that this natural process aligns with the seasons of the year. I still notice this in my own practice. When the light is plentiful I have energy to spare, and I expect myself to keep that up when the days go shorter, the wind picks up, and the days become dark and cold. If this happens to you, that is ok. Just notice you are putting pressure on yourself, and when you notice, scale down. Make your behavior easier to do. Always have the tiniest version of your behavior as your base. When a dark season comes because a big life event hits you, your tiniest version is the only thing you need to do.

How I dealth with the biggest change in my life

Here is how my habits evolved in the first, second, third, and fourth quarter of Nyms first year on on earth:

Q1: I kept one old habit, added one new habit, and focused on enjoyment

In the first 3 months, the only thing I consistently did, was a short morning walk (an old habit), and a simple and easy work-out at the crossfit gym targeted at rehabbing my body (a new habit). Once or twice a week I would drop into a fellow yoga teachers class because I could not bring myself to do yoga on my own but I enjoyed being guided by others and reconnecting to my body in a community space.

Q2: Adding work, feeling like a failure, making things easier for myself

In the second three months, I started working again, which was the real challenge! I was working on my new breathwork course Breathing: the Science & Practice of Breathwork, and I felt that I SHOULD do more breathwork ("You are writing and recording about its importance every day so why don't you just do it!"), but I could never find the time. The mental struggle was REAL. Before my burnout, this was something I used to just push through for months on end. Now, when I notice I am chronically stressing myself out, I ask myself: How can I make this easier? I decided to pair breathwork with breastfeeding, which was a huge relieve. This was something I did daily anyway, so it didn't add something to my list, it just made something I already did more peaceful, mindful, and easy.

Q3, Starting to teach yoga, feeling like a failure, scaling down

In the third three months, I started teaching yoga again, and with that came the feeling that I SHOULD do more yoga, and I thought I should get back on track with that handstand program, but again, I could never find the time. While my inner critic was yelling: "BAD yoga teacher!". I decided to go for consistency over complexity. I stacked my habit of yoga onto my daily habit of a morning walk, and promised myself to just step onto my mat, practice for 5 minutes, sit on my meditation pillow take a few breaths, and write in my journal: YAY, I MADE IT ONTO MY MAT TODAY. Believe it or not, but this very simple sequence of cue (morning walk), behavior (step onto the mat/pillow), and reward (write YAY I MADE IT TODAY) got me feeling good about myself again, and back into my routine in just a few weeks.

Q4, Scaling up, feeling in control again

I am now in the final 3 months of Nyms first year of life. I expanded on those simple steps: morning walk became morning run & breathwork, stepping onto the mat became 20 minutes of practice, sitting on the pillow became 5 minutes of meditation, and writing in the journal went back to my normal journal format of answering 4 questions daily. I am not saying that this whole journey was easy. If anything, I had to deal with a lot of failure related emotions, face the fact that I was creating unrealistic expectations, stressing myself out unnecesarily, and that took time. When I write it down today, it seems like a simple stepwise process, but at that time, it was messy and confusing and difficult. There were a few things that I needed to figure out (again), that helped me get back on track, and that I think will be useful for anyone who wants their health to be consistent and able to weather a storm:

The 3 essential things to weather the storm:

1. Scaling down to a tiny version of your habit is also important if you consider yourself 'advanced' in the domain you work in. Keeping your ego in check and having the humility to take that step back in order to stay consistent is not only necessary to stay the course, it is the compassionate and kind thing to do in a time of struggle.
2. Rewarding yourself for very small steps is insanely important. Writing down: "YAY I MADE IT TODAY" was the key to feeling proud, and feeling like I was gaining momentum and could trust myself to get back on track. I needed that to feel confident that one day, I would be able to do more. I have always been stretching this in courses and coaching tracks, but I have never felt the immense power of a good reward for a small step until this moment where I was really only able to do the absolute minimum.
3. Being honest and real with yourself, and taking the necesary steps to support your needs are crucial. I needed to take a hard look at the structure of my day and consider my barriers. Barriers are things or people that make our habits hard to do. Sometimes, barriers are the best things in our life. Nym is amazing and she brightens every aspect of my life, but she is also a barrier to my practice. I had to abandon the idea that being the best mum ever meant spending all morning with her and always doing my yoga practice in the park with her besides me. I needed to ask my partner to take her to daycare in the morning to free up space for my morning routine. The upside: I get more focused work done so I get to pick her up from daycare early so we have a relaxing winddown of the day together.

I hope this story has helped you realize that if you struggle with your habits sometimes, you are not alone. I teach about this topic regularly, and I also stumble and fall. With the right tools, these stubles can be overcome. If you want to lean more about habits, you can follow my blogpost, or hit the button below.

With love & gratitude,

Inge