Make One Change

Practice of the Week
Make One Change

"Research has shown that it takes 31 days of conscious effort to make or break a habit. That means, if one practices something consistently for 31 days, on the 32nd day it does become a habit. Information has been internalised into behavioural change, which is called transformation." (Shiv Khera)

This "practice of the week" will actually take 31 days to do. This is the Spiritual Exercise for this month's theme, "Transformation."

This month, make a change -- start doing something you’ve wanted to make a regular part of your life, or stop doing something you’ve come to regard as a “bad habit.”

It doesn’t have to be a huge change -- sometimes profound transformations start with a modest change of habit.

Pick something to do and do it every day for 31 days. (Or pick something that you’ve been doing almost every day, and refrain from it for 31 days.) Choose something reasonable and do-able -- something that you realistically can do every day, even if you’re traveling and away from home.

Don’t set a goal to work up to (like total miles run, pounds lost, or minutes of meditation). This is not about improving your performance at something -- it’s just about doing it (never mind how well or poorly). The only goal is just to do the new thing every day for 31 days.

This is an exercise in very intentional change. While profound personal transformation is usually only partly intentional, adding (or subtracting) one simple habit teaches us to be more alive to possibilities for much bigger changes.

Your new habit could be a particular spiritual practice (for reminders of ideas, see: cucmatters.org/p/practice.html) -- or it could be exercise/diet/hygiene related. Just pick something new and resolve to do it daily for 31 days.

Come to your journey group prepared to talk about how it’s going!

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