A small lesson in kaizen and continuous improvement (and not doubling down on a failing strategy) I want to share this morning.
Almost a month ago I started doing the Miracle Morning and the S.A.V.E.R.S. Starting a meditation (S - silence) practice again was great and I immediately started seeing the benefits. Positive affirmations (A) were new, but I liked them. Visualization (V) was also new and a little tricky, but it felt positive. For Exercise (E) doing some Sun Salutations A & B has also had a positive impact. I usually listen to audiobooks in the car so Reading (R) was nothing new really.
That final S is for scribing, journaling, writing. Sure I get my bullet journal ready in the morning, but I wasn't actually journaling. So I started doing a little research and stumbled across The Artist's Way and Morning pages. 3 A4/8.5x11 sheets of paper handwritten every morning, stream of consciousness writing. The idea is that you dump all the thoughts and feelings that are blocking you and it helps you to be more creative. The creator says they will be whiny, complainy, negative, and that's OK.
For me that was NOT OK. Starting my morning being negative meant my thought patterns were negative, that I focused on the negative. So today I tried something new.
This morning I did my own variation, I don’t have a name yet, for for now I’ll call them positivity pages. I wrote a minimum of 1 full page, still handwritten, but focusing on things that went well, things I want to try, things I am good at, things I have learned, things that are good. It seems to have already made a difference.
So I’m going to keep trying this and see how it goes. If I need to change it again, I will, and if this works well for me I’ll keep doing this.
No matter what you try, be ready to change if it’s not working. Don’t get stuck because you are unwilling or unable to learn, change, and grow. Kaizen means continuous improvement, but through small incremental steps. Get an idea, make a hypothesis, test, and adjust. Plan, do, check, act.