Goal Guidance for healing and recovery

Newbee
1

Just wanted to write a bit out as I am setting up a new goal!

A lot of my struggles with beeminding and staying productive in general boil down to one simple issue: I react self-destructively to my current situation, and end up pushing away/avoiding the very things that I see as important to move forwards.

Obviously, this means that the more important I make something seem, the more pressure I put on myself, the more money I put on the line, the greater the likelihood that this self-destructive side will come out, and wipe away all of the good-intentioned progress that I have done. This kind of pressure only works in the very short term as most of you know.

Iā€™m coming to accept how many of my activities are there to simply distract me from the pain and suffering inherent to my situation. Just simply finding the space to be there with that discomfort helps, as long as I have a clear Idea of why I am working to alleviate this and better myself. Itā€™s easy for false meaning to sneak in and loop back to distraction, so my intention is to simplify things to the extent to where I can focus on the small choices that keep momentum going, rather than feeling overwhelmed by pressure and consequences.

What Iā€™m getting at, is that I think itā€™s important that I prioritize healing and care over productivity, even if this means that I will definitely suffer financially and socially, at first, itā€™s nothing irreversible. To do so, I have a program, Purity is Possible, that I will be following that I have faith will help to guide me in the right direction, even if only for the short term. I also have a group of positive folks on Habitica who have already been very supportive and kind, along with a few other friends that I have reached out to who are great listeners and thoughtful about my situation.

I feel like my roadblock right now, is piecing everything together, and distilling it down to a concrete, simple goal, with real steps that I can follow and not get off track so easily. I feel that I have to be awfully detailed in doing so, on the other hand, as I tend to require significant guidance in accomplishing most things productive people take for granted. For example, it takes me a long time to get comfortable with any new activity, even simple stuff. I have been sleeping on the couch at my brotherā€™s place, and we finally got a bed set up, and it even took me about a week before I started to use it.
Not saying that I donā€™t want to be bold and change big things, just that I expect to have to adjust how I get things done quite a bit based on how I react day to day. So Iā€™m okay with this taking a couple of revisions to boil down to what I actually need to accomplish these goals.

Iā€™m mainly just seeking guidance in setting up a sustainable, simple to act on goal that will be strong enough to not be overwhelmed by my somewhat intense situation and backfire and turn into some obligation that I seek to distract myself from.

PM if available!

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2

Hi! I donā€™t really have much to add, except it sounds like youā€™re doing good work thinking about yourself and how you use (or abuse!) goals. I donā€™t have any real advice, except that it sounds like youā€™re on the right track!

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Iā€™m not sure if youā€™d find this useful, but I find beeminding ā€œmini habitsā€ can be really helpful when Iā€™m feeling overwhelmed. That way, itā€™s something you can accomplish no matter how rough of a day or week Iā€™m having, and on the days when things are going better, Iā€™m likely to do more, since often itā€™s just getting started thatā€™s the hard part for me. Basically, if itā€™s something I couldnā€™t accomplish while I have something like the flu, itā€™s probably too big. (So, for instance, think of things like meditate for 1 minute (or 10 seconds, even; why not?), to do 1 minute of strength training, or do a 10-second plank, floss one toothā€¦ etc.)

I usually have two goals for these. One that tracks something like my actual results (like number of minutes meditated) and one that tracks the mini habit (Iā€™m lazy, so I use IFTTT to populate the mini-habit one from the other).

Another way to do it, if you have a Bee Plus or Beemium plan, is to have a VERY low rate (like 10 seconds/day), but have the goal auto-tighten so that you have to do it every single day (by setting the ā€œmax safe daysā€ to 0).

Consistency every day can feel like a big win in rough times, and it keeps the focus on healthy things, keeping them in your mind and on your list, without crushing yourself under the weight of too many expectations. And then when you exceed the minimums by a lot, that feels like a second win.

Good luck with whatever you end up setting up!

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