What's Your Mantra?

It is a know fact that committed daily practice to a task will yield results overtime. It is also known that everybody will hit resistance at some point. Drive, will, and determination will only get us so far. At some point, the music stops. So, what do we do when the music stops?

This happened with me with my goal of aiming to touch type at 60 wpm at 100% accuracy. I gave up after 7 weeks! I stopped seeing increases for the 1 hour a day I was practicing. I hit a wall. My fingers and brain just don't work like that, I told myself. True? Who knows.

But then there is my calisthenics for 18 minutes a day for five days a week. Which I have been doing since October of last year. I've of course increased repetitions since multiple times. The last increase was the second week of December. It was a big one. Too much. It took me three months and a diet change to pure carnivore (from keto carnivore with fruit and dairy and egg and butter to just fatty meat, salt, and water). Eliminating the cheese (and possibly egg and fruit) really helped. I think it was causing autoimmune flare ups.

But anyway, I digress (even though there is a massive lesson there for finding your optimum health! and being true to yourself!). I never thought I would break through the wall on this increased reps. 3 months! of redlining it. I was done at the end of each session. It was foolish. It was beyond the feeling I wanted at the end. I want the positive dopamine release feeling one gets from doing something challenging but not over kill. This was over kill. I was 100% maxed, where the aim should be 85-90%. But I stayed with it. I broke through. Even though I didn't think it was possible. Now, I am a physical person, and I like to push myself physically. And on most days I'd have to give myself a mantra.

Mantras. What you repeatedly say to yourself to achieve your goal. I had several that I used.

1) "Just do your best."

2) "Keep going."

3) "This too shall pass."

4) "Something is better than nothing."

5) "Fast is slow, slow is fast."

That last one is great, especially for pacing. It is incredible actually. Like focusing on your breathing, it gets you grounded in the present and connects you with what you are doing. You 'lose' yourself in time and space and everything just magically passes with such greater ease. You almost forget you are even there or doing the activity. Going smoothly is actually faster, and when you couple it with "keep going" or keep moving", you cut your transition times between exercises, resulting in faster times. My pace at which I did the exercise did not change (nor do I recommend it. It doesn't really work for this type of fitness or daily practice). More mantras are peppered below.

Some other suggestions for maintaining a positive daily habit:

1) Learn to love the process. Make it fun. Ask yourself: "How can I make this fun?" Find the game in it.

2) Do your best. 80 or 90 percent is still good. And the reality is your body, through muscle memory, will in nearly every occurrence do the full 100% of the program in the amount of time.

3) Something is better than nothing! You can't improve with no action. Some action (toward your goal) is better than nothing. Whether it's one minute, one rep, one sentence, one brush stroke, one lap, one guitar cord. "Just start!"

4) Just start. Do not overthink it. In fact, do not think at all! "Don't think just do!" "Just move your body" and create the momentum. Soon enough "those in motion stay in motion."

Tell me what mantras you use. Whether the same as above or different. The more tools we have the better.