Sandbagging Continued
Iām suffering through an paralysis by analysis these days in taking up my habits after a long absence and in continuing forward with the Mastery phase of my project.
And this is understandable. I feel this project has gone through phases: gamification, habituation, recording and habituation, and now pushing skills towards mastery. At every point where I felt a need to shift things up, Iāve felt dead in the water.
My main question is how I should shuffle habits that need pushed when in reality - they all do. Iām not taking about extraneous habits that can be dropped. theyāre all important, and they all exist in a core family. Meditation, eating, and exercise all have far reaching benefits that extend through out any endeavor in terms of energy, general health, and mental stability. Recording is how I keep track of the project as a whole, and writing is something I have to do for work.Ā
If I want theĀ āthing itselfā for any of these, I feel like Iāll be endlessly dithering around with the other, especially with the knowledge of how pushing a skill towards mastery tends to cause severe strains on the overall system of willpower that sustains other habits.Ā
Iāve talked about methods of getting around this before - particularly with the notion ofĀ āshelfingā - getting a habit up to a self sustainedĀ ānext levelā then cycling to another skill to push.
Talking over it with Lydia the other day, she suggested using sandbagging, which I talked about a long time ago. Essentially itās reaching further than you think you can, and letting go of tasks that donāt need to be worked on now. Since NaNoWriMo is this month, and Iām writing for that, thereās going to be a extra load because Iām not used to writing that much daily. On top of that, Iām going to have problems because Iām re-engaging all my habits after an absence.
The question becomes - what habit, in a core group of habits like this, should I drop? Her answer - whatās going to give you the most bang for your buck?
You can make a sandbagging ratio - of habits based on how much they give vs how much they take to implement. Going through it went like this:
-meditation is easy to implement (only takes a few minutes, is a single task per day) yet mental stability seems to strengthen every endeavor. HIGH PRIORITY
-Exercise is a little more difficult. Itās also a single task, and though it has an initial draining factor (i.e. tiredness) it provides more energy.Ā
-Eating - incredibly difficult to implement - itās a continuous task along multiple scenarios. Has a great bang, cause it helps regulate energy levels.
Therefore eating is the first bag that could be dropped during this time, even though I hate to do it. Iāll start recording today, and just consider eating as a soft goal for this month.















