Habit forming - or giving up?

I was taught meditation techniques around 35 years ago, while learning yoga from a master who used to come home once a week to teach me. He said I need to sit in the 'vajrasana' posture while meditating and keep my thoughts free of any distraction. Initially he said there would be many silly thoughts coming and going, and I should let them come and go; but over time, with some effort these will reduce before stopping altogether and then I can experience the real fruits of thoughtlessness. Unfortunately, my habit of starting something before leaving that altogether or performing my usual start-stop-start-stop cycle, prevented me from reaching the promised thoughtless state. I gave up yoga totally in a couple of years.

The start-stop-start cycle happens with almost every good habit that I pick up. My morning ritual of performing 'sandhyavandanam' commenced after my 'upanayanam', and I performed that regularly twice a day for about a year and a half. Later when I went to college and stayed in a hostel, that routine stopped. After I returned home about 16 years later, I started that; gave up; restarted; gave up again. I often wonder why and still haven't got any satisfactory answer. Am I unique?

I asked Google about this and the AI assistant of Google gave the following reasons:

People struggle to maintain good habits due to factors like a lack of immediate gratification, difficulty in finding enjoyment, and the initial effort required to establish new routines, often leading to reverting to familiar, even if unhealthy, behaviors. 

Here's a more detailed explanation:

* Initial Effort and Lack of Immediate Rewards: Building a habit requires time, energy, and consistent effort, which can be challenging, especially when immediate rewards are not present. Good habits often provide long-term benefits, but may not offer immediate satisfaction, making it harder to stick to them. 

* Habit is too difficult or unenjoyable: Sometimes, the habit itself might be too difficult or not enjoyable, leading to people giving up on it.

* Too many habits at once: Trying to implement too many new habits simultaneously can be overwhelming and lead to failure to maintain any of them. 

* Stress and Emotional Factors: Stress, anxiety, or other difficult emotions can trigger reverting to old, potentially unhealthy habits as a coping mechanism. 

* Lack of Discipline and Consistency: Maintaining good habits requires discipline and consistency, which can be challenging, especially when faced with life's demands and setbacks. 

 

Some or all the above have been my problems in sticking with good habits like continuing with an exercise, performing my rituals, writing my blogs (why not?), meditating, reading books frequently and so many others. Looking back at the data of my blogging, there is evidence to support this. My most prolific blogging happened in 2020 - during the Covid lockdown period when I wrote a blog everyday for about 25 days ---- and then gave up! 😢

 

I do perform my morning and evening 'sandhyavandanam' almost regularly nowadays and the habit has been fairly routine with a contextual stimulus (performing in the morning hours after drinking my warm water). While performing the sandhyavandanam, one has to tell the gayathri mantra  which takes about 10-15 minutes. I have convinced myself that this routine is my meditation and while telling (in my mind) the mantra, I should also keep my thoughts from not wavering, but that does not happen. Take for instance today. The following thoughts kept interrupting me. I need to remain thoughtless, let me try today for a while, let me focus only on counting the number of times I have repeated the mantra, my wife has gone for her walk, I hope the maid servant rings the bell only after I have finished this ritual, is the front door closed and locked? or did my wife not close it properly? get back to banishing these thoughts away, get back to only counting the number of times I have said the mantra, I think I will write these things in a blog today! There is an aroma of fresh coffee coming from my neighbour's flat, wonder what brand they are buying, get back to thoughtlessness, where shall we go this summer when my children come from abroad? get back, get back to thoughtlessness, you can work on that during the whole day. There, 108 gayathri mantra completed successfully without being thoughtless even for 15 seconds at a time.