7 ways to avoid daily practice

January 26, 2021 and.

The act of daily, the process of practice, the building of change, and the intentional focus is daily. That 24 hours are repeating. The cycle, the methodical actions repeated.

For someone averse to any implementation of the structure, routine this daily act has been the most difficult to embrace, which is okay.

The reality is we have spent many years of our life talking, understanding it, aware of the impact of intentional daily action- YET- we avoid it, procrastinate for it, object to it (me!), deny it, ignore the benefits. The example is we all know we should eat healthily; we even know what healthy is prescribed to us by doctors 5 portions of fruit and veg a day minimum, we know it, yet we don’t do it. Eating is about balance; we all eat daily, with intent is the questions?

The practice of daily is one that we can validate, justify for NOT doing.

Imagine if we put the same focus, effort and intent on doing rather than avoiding. We consider many things through Dollar Dream Club and share the how-to implement, how to do, how to practice. How is essential it’s the part we miss in most growth, change and personal practice.

The challenge can be that the How doesn’t stop us from not doing- it is an instruction manual, a guide, a coach, support all there to help us do. Yet the physical action of daily doing is owned by you. Us, as the individual, you, is the ONLY one who can do the daily steps required.

Looking at this is critical in making daily practice successful. I share seven things I have undertaken at different times to overcome my objections, great procrastination, avoidance and ultimately a detriment to doing daily practice.

The caveat to daily practice

The starting point and a critical caveat in all things dealing with objections, conflict and personal challenge of NOT doing are we have to be brutally honest, self-critical (kindly) and self-aware. Not applying these filters is a skill as much as using them! We can avoid all of these factors and validate through justification the biggest one being time. So let's start there before I share the seven actions.

Okay, I will start by pushing the beliefs, the fundamentals and also deep-rooted connectivity to time. Time is a human construct. We created the concept of 24 hours in a day, a day itself we made, the name of them, the minutes seconds, hours.

The easiest way to start to change your concept of time is to revert to nature.

The Sun rises the sun sets, that’s time, it's cyclical. It’s a daily action. The idea of the time in-between this was and continues to drive poor behaviours, attitudes, mindsets, and the pressure of committing to specific time constructs. Then this pressure builds, and we avoid the actions that benefit us.

Consider the seasons in nature, the actions the flowering of plants the hibernation of animals, the blossom, leaves falling, all built around cycles, not time. Now if this is difficult to comprehend, let’s look at it this way- we are talking about daily practice, daily actions to benefit you. So, we have to challenge the normal construct of how we do these things, and they are embedded.

You eat at a particular time because someone called it breakfast, lunch, dinner, restaurants trade to these times? You sleep at certain times because someone called it night-time, you work 9-5 because someone said that’s the hours we should work? So, if we start by removing these concepts of time, you have a distinct amount of, the time you own, connect to and can without boundary apply.

You must sleep its critical to your health; you must eat to energise your body and function, yet when you choose to do this between the sun cycles is yours to choose. Creating the removal of connection to time, its pressure (human-created) and it’s the start to successful daily practice. I also see the benefit of hybrid working, remote working, and the future is a bonus to releasing us from the constriction of human formed time.

Let’s look at the seven things you can choose to apply to aid your daily practice.

1. Environment

An easy option to apply and validate to NOT doing daily practice.

“I am not where I usually am”.
“I am travelling”
“I am staying somewhere else”
“Its-name seasonal event.”

The environment is a big red herring for practice as the practice is from within daily. Not externally driven. So, you are always with you, and you can’t go on holiday from yourself? You may associate a chair (as Dollar Dream Club does prepare you to), yet it’s not the direct connection. It’s you. You are the environment.

To help you when this arises as an external factor. Replay why you are choosing to do daily practice and that it is internal, inside work. Say I am the environment, I am the constant, I am the daily practice. I can, I will, I shall, I do my daily practice.

2. Mood

An interesting validation as we are more connected to practise when we have a low or high mood.

Consider this, when you are excited, happy, energised, you practice

When you feel lethargic, disconnected, or low you do the practice as you need the practice.

The risk area we use is the middle mood that 3-6 mood, the one that is indifferent, easily swayed to high or low mood. If we scored 0-10, our moods could be a direct driver to us justifying that it won’t work today- “I'm not in the mood”. This self-statement then validates that you won’t get the benefits, and the daily practice is put off and avoided.

When this arises as an external factor, replay why you choose to do daily practice and internal, inside work. Say I am the choosing the mood, I am the constant, I am the daily practice. I can, I will, I shall, I do my daily practice.

3. Others

The external people in our life each have a part to play in our lives. From a neuroscience perspective, a brain isn’t a mind unless its connected or stimulated by another. So we are deeply affected by others.

They can be a positive or negative influence.

When we want to change or apply different things to what we do and even shake our beliefs and take action we can get a lack of understanding (disconnection), from others. It can be disruptive, not for just for the ones around you.

Change has a fear metric attached to it, also its perspective, their internal dialogue you are encountering. The impact of others is a choice to make.

Daily Practise isn’t invasive, offensive or selfish, it is the inner work and it’s choosing to -listen and hear what others say and deciding is the benefit for them or you? It is also an option to share what you are doing and most importantly, why. You will get naysayers and others that don’t want to understand that doesn’t mean you are wrong or right, or they are. It is personal work and should be seen that way.

A more significant option here is to list all the people in your circles of connection, who are positive energisers and negative mood hoovers (Dave talks about it here)

When this arises as an external factor, replay why you choose to do daily practice and internal, inside work. Say I am the choosing to take my action, I am the constant, I am the daily practice. I can, I will, I shall, I do my daily practice.

4. Missing NOW

We can easily miss the NOW. Which is interesting from a human level; we only live in the now!

Oddly, we do forget or connect the to the now, we all do it, miss the moment of now.

I spent a lot of my time in the past, and it was very destructive, and I didn’t experience the now and missed many connections, and it affected many areas of my life, negatively. Eckhart Tolle writes about it, the impact of being in the now, being part of now. We can easily fall into living in the past, the future, we take our thoughts, beliefs, actions, inaction from these places and not from the now.

Being in the now is your power tool. Your opportunity.

Dollar Dream Club connects us to a future desire and progression, yet it sits in the action of now. Ignoring the now, the instant, the moment also impacts our ability to connect to gratitude. “Now” and gratitude are intrinsically linked and also a focus on Dollar Dream Club. As in my discussion earlier on the human construct of time, being in the now is connected to nature. Let me explain, if we see NOW, the instant, moment we can see that it’s what we control. That moment is all we can control. The past is behind us and uninfluenced by the now or the future. The future is ahead of us, and one could say influenced by the now actions we undertake, yet it's still an unknown. Now is its moment of action (or inaction). Nature reacts to each now, building and preparing for the future, yet the future is still unknown, so the act of now is a must for there to even be future. However, focussing on the future (or even the past) alone means we distort and miss the actions we have to do to improve the options ahead of us.

When this arises as an external factor, replay why you choose to do daily practice and internal, inside work. Say I am the choosing to be in the now, I am the constant, I am the daily practice. I can, I will, I shall, I do my daily practice.

5. Fixation on the “happening.”

The desire to see the instant results, the path and the steps are happening in front of you. The process of practice is one to trust, believe in and not anticipate. Its’ not like ordering online and getting a track my order notification.

We can get attached, fixated on the steps that must occur to obtain the practice outcomes.

Dollar dream Club: practice teaches us that the practice is the focus, not the outcome. That cheesy cliché the journey is more important than the destination, is true entirely.

We get fixated on the goals, the outcome, the result, the win. A nature example is easily applied here when fog descends it covers what we see, yet everything still exists amongst the fog. It’s just covered by the fog, not removed, missing or lost. It remains, we know it’s there, we believe it’s there, and we trust what was there before exists. The same for fixating on the happening, we just act on the practice without a need to see beneath the fog. May seem difficult to connect too, yet through Dollar Dream Club, it’s the practice that aids this visibility of believing and knowing that each day working on your practice eventually the fog clears. You see what you were practising come to fruition. Any daily practice is the same if you decide to undertake a new gym routine, exercise plan, nutritional plan, mindset work; you know that the outcome will be. Yet each day you have to take action to work through, and instantaneous results and outcomes aren’t visible, (think fog), yet they are happening in the daily culmination of practice.

When this arises as an external factor, replay why you choose to do daily practice and internal, inside work. Say I am the choosing to be in the fog, I am the constant, I am the daily practice. I can, I will, I shall, I do my daily practice.

6. Like vs Doing

We want to do the things we like doing. The things that are nice at the moment (go back to being In the Now!) yet this “like’ can override the need to do. When we choose to apply the change, new actions, daily practice in our lives, we are upsetting our familiar patterns and routines. Familiarity is comfortable, and change is discomfort. At a neuroscientific level, we are literally creating new neural connections that use up our body energy, so this change is not only uncomfortable in our typical day to day routines as it's unfamiliar it’s also energy using. Creating new likes is using more energy whereas doing versus the non-energy zapping of liking, what takes least effort will be an easier option.

When I spoke with Dave about this rationalisation for not doing daily practise, he stated that “Familiarity won’t make the change you want. Familiarisation overrides the new choice.”

Therefore, it’s a whole bodily function at every level for your senses, physiology, neural, biological and physical level- that’s a lot of effort. Understandably making it easy NOT to do. Be prepared that our like and familiar routine will change, we have to be ready to override until this new practice becomes your familiar.

When this arises as an external factor, replay why you choose to do daily practice and internal, inside work. Say I am the choosing the discomfort of my new routine, I am the constant, I am the daily practice. I can, I will, I shall, I do my daily practice.

7. Self-Talk

The most powerful aspects of our thought life is self-talk. The inner dialogue we do, this is an established dedicated daily practice as you talk to yourself ALL the time.

This dialogue can be positive, neutral or negative, a driver for action or sabotage to yourself.

In my blogs, I wrote a 31 Days Mind Your Self Guide. It was self-action advent for me written in 2017 to move me forward, to get out my way. I was acutely area of the detriment my inner self-talk and, it was just before we started the creation of Dollar Dream Club so my initial preparation.

Read it here. The power of intent is essential here if we are self-talking ourselves to NOT doing daily practice.

Ask yourself why?
Ask yourself, what can you do right now?
How can you change this internal message?
What if you went and did the daily practice?

The voice would subside and be no more focused on that particular topic?

When this arises as an external factor, replay why you choose to do daily practice and internal, inside work. Say I am the choosing to do my daily practice, I am the constant, I am the daily practice. I can, I will, I shall, I do my daily practice.

Remember we have removed the rationale of having no time; this human construct is entirely in your control.

The overall summary is if we want to do daily practice. We have to do, choose to take action, we are the only obstacle.

We will continue to create excuses, rationalisations, justifications, validations for not doing. Turn it around and make intentional reasons for doing. My final thoughts are twofold the action is a necessity, and so is belief. You can instil belief through daily practice, and that way, you can boost your practice. Do consider if you have a wobble of belief reflect on the seven reasons and see if any are being applied. Enjoy your daily practice; whatever you choose it to be.

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