Hey, there. It's Susan Peirce Thompson, and welcome to the weekly vlog. So, I have a great habit hack for you this week, and before I launch into it, I'm going to tell you a story about how I got to the place where I'm sharing this with you this week. The story is about where I'm at in terms of my life, my body, my habits. Basically, I just turned 49. I just turned 49 on June 29, 2023. I turned 49, and I love being 49. I just feel like it's the best age. I mean, other than being 10. 10 was the best age, but 49 is the second-best age, and maybe it's just because I love the number 49 so much.
I'm a San Francisco 49ers fan. I was born and raised in San Francisco, while they were winning Super Bowl after Super Bowl. It was so fun, when I was coming of age. But also, my mom was born in 1949. My dad's wife, Emily, was born in 1949. My uncle Mark was born in 1949. My cousin Linda was born in 1949. All of that generation for me, my parents' generation, they were all born in 1949, so it's always just felt like a really auspicious year, and the gold rush of 1949. Like, I'm from San Francisco, right? So not... 1849. Duh. Okay.
So, I'm 49, and there's something about this age, and it's not just me. It's in the literature. Like, if you look at the number one year that people decide to run a first marathon, you see 49, as well as 29 and 39. There's something about being about to hit a big age milestone that makes you hustle to get your act together. It's kind of an interesting phenomenon. Now, it makes sense that motivation comes along with those big milestones, but I don't know why people would run a marathon when they're 49 as opposed to 50, right? Like, maybe say, "Okay, I've turned 50." It's, "I'm going to do something to commemorate that. I'm going to run my first marathon." No, they do it when they're 49, as if they're trying to get it in before they turn 50. I think that's really interesting.
And I'm definitely feeling that increased motivation, and for me, what I want to do is I want to get my body healthy again. I have had joint issues for quite a while now, shoulders, hips, knees, thumb, knuckle. I've got these joint issues, and I recently started doing Egoscue, and if you've never heard the word before, it's spelled E-G-O-S-C-U-E, named after the guy, I think it was Peter Egoscue, who founded the method in 1978, maybe. He was a postural specialist, and it's a method for adjusting your posture using certain exercises. Now, I'd been doing physical therapy. I mean, I have shoulder impingement in my right shoulder and a frozen shoulder, and oh my gosh, I have been doing my physical therapy, but you know, these band exercises, a whole bunch of them, and all these little micro-strengthening exercises. I was getting stronger, but it wasn't helping my shoulder feel better at all, and at some point, I just started to feel frustrated with the whole thing.
So, I got turned onto Egoscue, and the exercises are so weird. I got to tell you, they're weird. I mean, like turn freakishly pigeon-toed, and lock out your knees, and stand against a wall, and hold it for two minutes. I mean, like, you know, lie on your back and rotate your ankles around. I mean, just things I've never... And it's sort of like, "What do my knees and my ankles have to do with my hips and my shoulders?" And it's like, "Well, everything. Your shoulder is out because your hips aren't properly aligned over your knees, which aren't properly aligned to your ankles, and all of that's compensating you over to the side, and then your head won't let your eyeballs be out of alignment, so your shoulder is having to pull it all down to straighten your eyes again, and boom, strain on your shoulder, and your shoulder's out," and it's like, "Oh. Okay." The body is all connected. It's all connected.
So, I've got 15 minutes. Okay, now we get to the point. I've got 15 minutes of exercises to do every day, and I am so committed to doing them. They're weird, but they're effective. I mean, like I feel my posture getting clearer, stronger, truer. It feels good, really good, and I am committed to doing these exercises. And, I just got back from a three-week vacation, and you know, I was camping in Oregon for a couple weeks, and then traveling down the California coast, and staying at a hot springs, and then staying with friends in Santa Cruz, and then I flew home, and I was frequently met with days that were so kind of happening and packed that I'd get to the end of the day and be late, and I would think, "Oh, darn it. I didn't do my Egoscue exercises." It's only 15 minutes, but you know the feeling, right? The, "Ugh." You know, maybe even I'm in bed already. Am I really going to do these exercises?
And the question of when and how is it okay to miss a habit that you're trying to stay faithful to, and so that's what I'm going to address in this week's vlog. The truth is that research shows that missing a habit once has no bearing on the effectiveness, the longevity, the stickiness of that habit. However, the key is never miss twice. Missing once is an outlier. It happens. Everybody's human. Everybody has a bad day. Everybody forgets. Everybody gets sick. Everybody whatever. Missing twice in a row is the beginning of a pattern, and so if you can hold onto the mantra, "I never miss twice. I never miss twice," you cut off at the pass the beginning of the pattern of not doing it anymore regularly, right? Do you see the brilliance of this?
And what has happened for me over the last, let's say, month that I've been doing these Egoscue exercises is I've kept about 90% faithfulness to these exercises, even though I've been really in an upheaval, just traveling almost that whole time, and I've done it by holding to the mantra, "I never miss twice." And I have never missed twice in this month. I have missed here and there. I think four or five times, I have missed doing it, but I have never missed twice in a row. And, oh, it's such a sane relief, to be lying in bed thinking, "I didn't do my exercises," and to think, "Well, okay, I'm not going to do them today, but I am for sure going to do them tomorrow, because I never miss twice," and then I get right back on track.
There was a time when I hadn't done them, and I was like, "Am I really going to miss? Because I know I just missed," but I looked at my tracker, my nightly checklist sheet, and actually, I did just miss, but it was actually four or five days ago that I missed. I was like, "Okay, I am going to miss again, but I will make sure to do them tomorrow." And it's been such a salvation, this mantra, "I never miss twice." Now, credit where credit is due. This comes from James Clear. Check out the book, Atomic Habits. Check out his blog. I love James Clear. I love his teachings on habits and habit formation, and he's the one who put this together, the, "Never miss twice," the importance of understanding that if you're going to be a human being practicing a behavior, like meditating, or doing Egoscue exercises, you're going to miss sometimes, and it's not missing the first time that you need to worry about. It's heading off missing the second time. "I never miss twice."
I've been loving it. Give it a try. That's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
