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Check What You’re Checking

A lot of self-help concentrates on conscious behaviours — what we choose to do.

Self-help often trips itself up over unconscious behaviours. So all that time we’re reading articles about journalling, we may be missing the very things that make us think we need something like journalling to “make the difference.”

Here is a deliberately low-level example. I check my phone too often. Whenever I hear the beep, I come running. This morning, I challenged myself to ignore the beeps. I did it, but it took effort.

Where there is effort, there’s something pushing back and that’s often worth investigating.

So check what you’re checking. Keep re-visiting what you keep re-visiting.

Social media? Stats? News? Stimulation? If we catch ourselves doing something too often, we could try stopping for a while.

If it’s not easy, it’s worth asking why.