Setting Up a Habit is Easy, But Making Them Stick – Hard AF

I planned to blog consistently this year, perhaps monthly. But it turns out to be easier to plan than to execute.

Why? I used to post my writings weekly during my university days. Sadly, as time goes by I started to have high standards and expectations regarding what I wanted to write and post. I want all my content to have a certain level of new knowledge/benefits that would impress me if I were the reader. In order to do so, I need to read more articles and studies; eventually costing me more time — which nowadays I don't have the luxury of. Sigh.

Who sets the rule for my post to be self-impressive? Me.
Are the readers' levels of 'This is Impressive' as same as mine? Not sure.
Then why should I care much about how other people perceive my writings? Logically speaking, I am the one that ruins the fun of this writing habit. I'm the one that did this to myself.

I have plenty of drafts. Rereading them made me hate myself. But probably I should stop caring too much. Blogging is actually an excellent way to improve my writing skills and vocabulary. Perhaps, I will start blogging again for the sake of consistency, without forcing myself too much to achieve the standard my brain or ego is longing for.

The not-so-new habits that I managed to carry throughout the past year are learning new languages; Russian (Русский язык) and Korean (한국어), and home-cook more rather than buying takeouts. For some reason, I am able to commit to these lessons every single day for the past 480 days. My motivation for learning them is basically to travel to those countries and be able to read directions and order food hahaha. 

Now I can confidently cook South East Asian food and sandwiches.

There are a lot of other habits that I want to keep, read more psychology books, sketch more often, monthly scroll + cafe hopping to replenish inspirations. But so far, I  can only maintain the above two. I knew about some apps that are made to help us build good habits. 

But I really hate being told what to do when I'm not being paid/compensated to do so.

I hate being enforced to 'drink a glass of water' in the morning once I woke up. That won't work on me. Based on the article I read (a background study to write this content), habits run on autopilot, and routines are intentional. And it takes 66 days before a habit becomes encoded onto your brain (Lally et al, 2009).

Okay. Won't dig too much. Bye.