Why the Smallest Habits Feel Like Mount Everest

I have not been practicing my piano.

I bought a piano on my way back from Japan a few months ago because I wanted to get back into something artistic that wasn’t related to coaching and business.

I started off great. There was an app with it where I had a three-month membership to learn how to play.

I used it at least 5 days a week for the first month and a half.

But since moving to my new place in Vegas, I’ve only played a handful of times.

And it’s always right there in my face. It’s in my reading room where my wife and I drink our coffee and read in the morning.

I walk by it at least 20 times a day on the way to the kitchen and the rest of the house.

Sometimes I’m sitting thinking about how I haven’t played in a while and I think maybe I should add a block in my calendar to remind myself to play… so I did, in the evening after work… And it still hasn’t happened.

Mr. Discipline here is struggling.

I was sitting down reflecting this morning on it, why? Why am I wanting to play and learn, but not doing it?

It feels that the more days go by where I don’t practice the behavior, the greater the tension becomes and the greater the mountain seems between me starting again, even to just practice for 5 minutes.

Doesn’t it sound silly?

I can remember when I had the same thoughts about fitness and healthy eating.

I told myself I would workout or start to eat healthier and didn’t… and the more days that went by, the greater the tension felt in my body, the harder it became to start until, eventually, I stopped feeling bad for not taking action on what I said I “wanted.”

That was decades ago.

But for the piano, it’s interesting to have this sensation with it. I’m feeling the tension of letting days go by without playing.

And since I’m completely new at it, and didn’t know a lot, restarting means starting from scratch and re-learning the notes.

Maybe that is an element of it as well: feeling like I’m going backwards, which I don’t like.

So not only is tension building from not taking action, but also I know that I would start further back from where I was.

Kind of like most people who struggle to lose weight and get fit. Maybe they had made some progress and were doing good until life threw a curveball (like ours, we moved to a different state).

But when I think of it logically for my situation, I find it silly because when I think about it, I just need to sit down for 5 minutes, not even 1 minute to restart the habit. I could commit to 5 minutes a day to restart the practice, but for some reason, it feels like committing to hiking Mount Everest.

The action is simple. There is nothing preventing me from doing the thing I say I want. All there is, is what’s been building up in my head about it.

It’s so funny how the mind works and how we let it take over with silly rules that don’t serve us.

So I start playing again by setting the bar to success low at 5 minutes a day, just like I did with daily journaling at 1 page a day and reading (2 pages a day). And I’ve done both those things for over 500+ days in a row at this point and have read many incredible books that have helped shape my life.

I felt inspired to write this while I was on digital detox, but I just slept for 10 hours and napped for 2 hours the day prior, and my mind is feeling the most refreshed I have in a while and is the clearest it’s been since my last digital detox.

I’m writing this down with pen and paper and typing it when I get back online.

But it just goes to show me the importance of rest even more and the importance of having space to reflect.

I don’t know if this article will make sense to someone, but it’s more of a reflection than a lesson on how our minds can make up rules that don’t make sense, and my solution to it was simply to massively lower the bar to entry and start with the smallest amount of action/time that I think will compound over time. ❤️

Sincerely,

Maxime

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