Being Busy Isn't an Excuse
There's a story about a reporter who once asked the Dalai Lama something along the lines of: “How are you able to fit in daily meditation with such a busy schedule?” The Dalai Lama smiled and replied that, on normal days, he meditates for 1 hour in the morning. He then smiled even more and said that on extremely busy days he meditates for 2 hours in the morning.
Being busy is such an easy excuse for not doing the things that we know are good for us. When life starts to take over, rather than holding our own boundaries and doubling down on the very tools that would help us deal with the busyness with more grace, we fold and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the overwhelm.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone else. When I've allowed myself to get busy, suddenly I don't have time to meditate or journal or run or have a proper lunch break. And yet, I still somehow have time to watch TV in the evening working through the SuDuko in the papers. Maybe I'm not too busy after all; maybe I've told myself a story that my practices take effort and I don't have the energy.
Which is all complete bollocks, in my experience.
Yes, it takes a little more effort to sit on my meditation cushion instead of the sofa or to put on my running shoes rather than stay in bed for another half an hour. But those habits, every time, without fail, energise me, help me focus and help me feel more capable of facing whatever the day has in store for me.
So, let's start by taking responsibility for ourselves. Let's be adults and parent ourselves. Because as much as we might think we don't like carrots, it turns out they can taste quite nice and they're good for us regardless.
I know it's not always easy. I also know that you are capable of hard things. So here are 5 ways to help you stick to your practices even when you're busy.
Aim Small. The biggest mistake I see clients making around fitting in their practice is that they're trying to shoehorn an elephant into a matchstick box. As perfectionists, it is so easy to sell ourselves the story that "good" meditation has to be at least 20 minutes or a run has to be at least 3 miles to be worth it. Yes, there are benefits for spending longer in our practices but it's not helpful when you've got a million and one other things that you want to do that day (that's another issue, by the way, trying to do all the things all the time but I'll save that for another day). Have a really small, I mean really small, even smaller....yep, a wafer-thin baseline. It's almost impossible to be to busy to meditate for a minute and you will get benefits from a minute of stillness. Try it now! Maybe your minimum running goal is to put on your trainers and stand outside. That can be enough. You'll find most days you want to do a bit longer but that's not the point. Starting small means you are much more likely to start at all.
Pick A Time. A question I often ask in coaching sessions is "how could you apply this in your life?" and clients often reply "oh, all the time". All the time is another way of saying none of the time. It's nowhere near specific enough. Like with Aim Small, this principle doesn't stop you from practising at other times, but have a time that you aim for consistently so you can build a habit around. And it doesn't have to be in the morning, although I find starting the day with my ritual of meditate, journal and some kind of exercise really sets me up for the day. Maybe it's while your child is napping or perhaps a mid-afternoon break. Whenever it is, pick a time and put it in your diary. Put a reminder on your phone or a post-it on the fridge so you remember! Personally, I find putting practices next to something I would do anyway stops them being crowded out by something else - which is why first thing in the morning works for me.
You Don't Have To Do It Every Day. Aiming for 100% is a pretty surefire way to fail. I used to try to do my morning ritual 7 days a week - although the embodiment course I was taken only asked me to do it 6 days a week but, you know, I had to chase the imaginary gold star - and every weekend, I would feel guilty for not doing it. So these days, I don't even try. Having one routine Monday - Friday and one for the weekends works for me. It supports me. Now, there is something to be said for habit and consistency but that doesn't mean you have to do the same thing everyday, especially if that gets boring for you or feels too much like a "should" rather a "want to" or a "get to". Pick a frequency that works for you.
Why = How. Practice becomes so much easier if you know why you're doing it. What quality are you building through this practice? What are the benefits of this practice over time? The more intentionally you practice, the more likely it is you will choose to do it, even when it's not the easiest course of action. Your why also becomes your how. When I was practising yin yoga last year, my why was to develop more compassion and self-acceptance so those were the qualities I tried to approach my practice with. There was no point bullying myself into practice - it completely defied the point. Know why you're practicing and see if you can build that into how you practise.
Celebrate. Perfectionists so often miss this one. We'll know exactly how many times we didn't practice but we never take any time to acknowledge all the times we did. I love collecting stars on Insight Timer - obviously! Maybe you give yourself a little reward for completing your practice this week, although avoid having your reward be not practice as you're seeding an unhelpful and contradictory story there. Accountability buddies can be helpful here if that's your thing (not sure - I highly recommend the Four Tendencies Quiz from Gretchen Rubin). It could be something as simple as acknowledging your success to yourself. Didn't do your practice? Celebrate that too - what a wonderful learning opportunity! What stopped you and how might you do things differently next time?
Going back to the Dalai Lama, I am absolutely not saying that you should be meditating for an hour a day, never mind two - unless you are, in fact, a Buddhist monk in which case you know more than this me anyway. What I think he was saying in his reply is that he appreciates the importance of his practice when his schedule gets busier. His practice becomes even more important on those days. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Our practices prepare us for success. They make it more likely we'll handle whatever life throws at us in the way that we would like to.
When we're busy, done is so much better than perfect. See if you can relax any notions you have of what your practice is meant to look like. Meditation (sorry to go on about it - it is a helpful one!) doesn't have to mean sitting in lotus position on a cushion; you could stand or sit in a chair or lie down. Exercise doesn't have to mean running or going to the gym; you could dance or go for a walk or play chase with your children. Have some options, a few different ways of cultivating the same quality in you that you can play with depending on where you are in your cycle or how everyone slept last night. Practice is not about perfection or performance; it's showing up.