Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? I have, in a way. A few days ago, I went through an annual planning exercise from Monk Manual, You Are Here. The principle behind the Monk Manual is that who we are and what we do are intimately linked. If you are not intentional about what you do, it’s easy to look back on a day, a week, or a life wasted. The Monk Manual is a planner, but not in the conventional sense. Each day, you not only plan your most important tasks, but also identify what you are grateful for and ways you can give. Then at the end of the day, you identify your highlights, when you were at your best, and ways you can improve tomorrow. There is a weekly aspect to the process, and a monthly, and now an annual.
The Monk Manual is very much in the spirit of Atomic Habits, which I believe I have written about before. The principle of Atomic Habits is that goals are less important than the habits you develop that make you the kind of person who achieves those goals. Teams don’t win championships because they want to—every team wants to. They win because they develop the daily practices that turn them into a championship-caliber team.
In a similar vein, I am listening to an audiobook, Stillness Is the Key, by Ryan Holiday. Holiday writes that basically all philosophical and religious traditions—Buddhism, Christianity, Stoicism, etc.—emphasize stillness of mind, body, and spirit. Stillness is not the same as inaction. It is thinking deeply, loving deeply, and living simply.
As John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” If you don’t pay attention, your days slip away. Wisdom and joy come from living intentionally. Develop a routine that includes habits of mind, body, and spirit that will make you a better person.
The “You Are Here” exercise results in four “doing” goals and four “being” goals. That’s about right: achieving more than four things in a year requires too much division of focus. These are big goals; of course, there may be little tasks or goals along the way. For example, one of my “doing” goals is to re-start the grant-advise-publish cycle in my research program. That means I need to write multiple proposals, get one or more funded, advise several students through graduation, recruit one or more new graduate students, and get their work published. Lots of tasks, lots of intermediate goals, all building towards one overarching goal.
“Being” goals require attention to daily disciplines. For example, one of my goals is to be Spirit-led. That won’t just happen. I need to cultivate my mind and spirit to be attuned to the leading of the Holy Spirit. How? By introducing spiritual disciplines and by feeling for the Spirit’s feedback as I try things.
The challenge, as with all New Year’s resolutions, is to keep going. Starting is easy; maintaining is hard. A recent nugget of wisdom from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, was, “The more disciplined your environment is, the less disciplined you need to be. Don’t swim upstream.” Clear’s insight about developing a habit is to make it easy, make it obvious, and make it rewarding. I am working hard to identify not only what I will do, but when, where, and how. For example, I have started meditating, but not on my own—with Headspace, an app that has guided meditations and daily reminders. The why also matters. My larger goals will keep me motivated to stick with the habit on those hard days, when I’m tired, stressed, or busy.
I know that some of my new practices won’t stick, but I don’t know which ones. Part of the Monk Manual philosophy and approach is to be reflective, always evaluating what is working and what isn’t. We have just ended a year in which everyone’s daily routine changed, perhaps several times. I expect such changes to continue. My life is strongly driven by the academic calendar, so I know that what I’m able to do this week will be harder in a couple weeks when classes begin. So be it. The important thing is to “just keep swimming,” as Dory said. Some changes are beyond my control, so I’ll just adapt.
What are your plans for 2021? How will you end 2021 as a better person than you are today?