Breaking Old Habits Takes Planning

Whenever you seek to change your behavior, you will run up against ingrained habits. Like getting out of a rut worn into a dirt road, it takes some effort to forge a new path. The old path is familiar and so easy to slip into. To succeed in making a change, you absolutely must plan to do things differently.

For example, in August when I strove to replace driving with biking, I had to rethink my schedule. A quick trip to the grocery store by car took longer by bike. In the summer heat, this also required packing an insulated bag and ice packs if perishable items were on the shopping list. I quickly remembered that better planning for meals and shopping helped reduce the number of last minute trips to the store.

Longer errands required more planning and a shift in attitude. My self-defense class meets 11 miles from home. In the past, I just hopped in the vehicle half an hour before class, made it through traffic in about 20-25 minutes, leaving me enough time to check in, change my shoes, and get focused before class. When I started biking to class, I found I needed to leave about an hour and a half before it started. Not only was my speed much slower than driving, I needed extra time to lock up the bike, rehydrate, and stretch my legs before checking in for class, changing my shoes, and getting focused. The return trip home again took almost three times longer than driving.

In the beginning, I resented how much longer it took to get there and back by bike. A class that used to only take no more than two hours out of my day was suddenly eating up half the day. Initially I was more physically worn out as well and didn't get much else accomplished after I got home. Eventually, however, I came to accept that the journey was as important as the class to my physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It was strengthening my ability to be more self-sufficient and providing time to enjoy the outdoors.

Now that I have challenged myself to eat from the food I have on hand (and get weekly from my CSA), I find I have to adjust my thinking again. This morning, I prepared to turn some of the overripe bananas into banana bread. As I reached for the container of flour ground by pedal power from locally grown wheat, I wondered if I had enough to make two loaves. Oops! There was not nearly enough flour to make even a single loaf.

The first thought that crossed through my mind was, "Oh well. I'll stop by Trader Joe's later and pick up a bag of whole white wheat flour." Before I could add this to my list of things to do today, I remembered that I'm not allowed to buy any food until next year! Well, that sure threw a wrench in my plans. To get flour, I'll have to grind it myself. Unfortunately, I have not learned (yet) how to set up the bike and grinder to do this so I have to wait until this evening when my sweetie is home. But, before he can do that, we're off to the annual Garden Fest at the Santa Cruz Farmers' Market.

By the time we get home from that, have dinner, set up the pedal-powered grinder set up, grind the flour, it will be rather late to start baking that banana bread but it will have to be done anyway. I'm out of baked goodies for my sweetie's lunches and I have tentative plans to help a friend do some packing tomorrow morning and, of course, my CSA duties in the afternoon/evening. The bananas won't keep until Saturday, which already has a full schedule anyway with yard sales, house-hunting, dog obedience class, and kitty-sitting for another friend.

Better planning would have found me grinding flour last weekend for this week's baking - and yes, I knew I'd be making banana bread this week. On weekend, we also occasionally grab a veggie burrito at Chipotle's Mexican Grill because I don't have meals ready for the weekend. Here it is Thursday afternoon, I don't have a meal plan through the weekend yet, and restaurants are not an option anymore. Um, can someone please tell me why I'm sitting here writing about this instead of figuring out what to eat this weekend?

I'm off now to climb out of my rut and make a new plan.