MOJO

Exactly three weeks into the new year, and I think more or less about the time when most people's new year's 'resolutions' start taking a bit of a tumble... I meant to, but Netflix... and after x-mas sales...and that new Gin brand I've never tried before and can't get in Paris (yes the last one is oddly specific), all excuses are valid...change really isn't easy.

To go back to my last post, I've given a lot of thought into how to go about change, and why I was really doing it.  In 'The year of less', Cait's reasons and goals were self evident, 30K in debt at 25, being 60lbs over the recommended weight, blackout drinking 3-4 times per week... these are some pretty strong blinking red lights that you can’t avoid forever.  But what if your life, in all those aspects is ok, or at least on the surface ok? What if the blinking lights are not so red and so easy to spot?  What if your finances are pretty good, despite some ridiculously frivolous spending, your BMI is the healthy, despite those 3kg you've gained and want to lose?  Sure you like drinking, but it’s far from being a problem… yet you still feel that something’s not quite right.

In my work, when we analyse a system or equipment's design in order to determine if it meets requirements and is what we call ‘robust’, we do something called a Failure Mode and Effect Analysis or FMEA.  In this FMEA, we analyse the potential failure modes a system can have, what the effects of those failure modes are on the intended process, how often they happen and how easily they can be detected, in order to determine the overall risk level.  In an ideal case, for a system to be considered robust, we would attack the first factor, the Failure mode, the reason, or cause, why everything happens after.  In a mechanical world, we might get better, more reliable, parts, increase technology, and if this isn't possible, we add better detections, reinforced controls, and maintenance to get the desired or avoid the 'effect of the failure'.  

If extrapolate this to analyse Cait’s risk factor, the shopping, overeating, drinking were the effects of something happening to her, not the reason, not the root cause. So what can be put in place to better control this risk factor?

There’s something that makes us overeat, not sleep well, over shop, over exercise in some cases, smoke, spend endless hours watching reruns of shows we know by heart… but how do we find it? And more importantly how do we fix it?

I, in my humble opinion, believe that behaviours are the result of something which happens as an initial response, a Failure mode, and then, unlike mechanical systems, those behaviours become so embedded in us, they stick around even when the Failure mode is no longer relevant. For instance, your parents are getting divorced, you’re getting divorced, you have grueling exams, someone dies…the stress and anxiety brought on might cause you to drink, and then you drink maybe a little more, and a little more, and then you eventually move on from the divorce, death, exams, whatever and the initial root cause goes away yet you still drink.  It’s now a habit, not only a conditionned response to new stress or anxiety but also the cause of it, a new Failure mode... a perpetual motion of anxiety and bad behaviour auto-feeding itself, and that's then you're F%^&.

My 2022 objectives are not so clear cut as ‘stop this’, ‘lose that’, ‘save, workout...’, but much more general about how I want to live my life, I realize that I have for all intents and purposes, 'lost my mojo'.  This might sound comical but truly, I find myself not enjoying most of the things I used to enjoy, preferring a night of binging on a series than seeing people, going to the gym, tango, reading... all of the things I used to rush to do.  Instead I shop for things I don't need and which bring me 0.5sec of 'joy', I don't eat all day, then swallow the first thing I can put my hands on,  I have brandy (?), yes brandy, on my own, on like a Monday?  I feel like I can't concentrate, I spend hours in front of my computer, yet I never finish what I need to finish, I spend days in my PJs...

Going back to the book, Cait describes many of the same feelings and patterns and it's only when she starts making real efforts to change the adjacent behaviours, that she manages to get a grip on everything else.  Cait does a lot more than just pay off her debt, and not shop for a year, she learns to see and appreciate things differently and it impacts every aspect of her life, she learns to live differently, to live better.  

So that's my goal, give my Mojo a jump-start and slowly start living differently.  The ‘how’ I will go about this is my own extrapolation or translation of what Cait did, of what different 'Habit-forming' theories I've read say.  I know I need something simple, with numbers and measurable results, or else it won't work.  

My idea is 'simple' (ish); a set of 30-day trends to help me get rid of some my bad habits, see how not having them around affects me, and integrate new ones.  Why 30 days? No clue, I’ve read that it takes 21 days, 40 days 15 days, 120 days to create new habits… frankly I have no idea why 30, but its a round number and seems long enough to require commitment but not so long as to be discouraging. So that's the idea, that and write about how it's going.

Next step: outline a plan and a set of rules and get started!