Bishop Desmond Tutu once said, “There is only one way to eat the elephant: one bite at a time.” And although I truly do not like the idea of eating an elephant either, you get the point: you can conquer anything in life, no matter how challenging or impossible it may seem, by tackling it bit by bit with steady progress. Recently this has been a saying I’ve taken to heart to help me get back on track for the daily wellness rituals I sacrificed to have one hell of a senior year (which I would happily offer again if granted the opportunity). In the past, I found it so hard to reverse certain habits that I knew deep down that I felt better off without, like looking at my phone immediately after waking up. That is until I broke down the changes I wanted to make into bite-sized pieces with a free-trial mentality.

The process should look a little bit like this:

1. Make a long (absolutely no holding back, kk?) laundry list of all of the habits you want to incorporate into your day, and if applicable, like in my case, practices you want to reclaim.

2. Pick one and strictly only one from the list to try on for size throughout the span of a week-long period.

3. Mentally assess during the week how well you a) actually benefit from the new addition to your usual routine, b) how easily you can make it fit into your life, and c) whether you actually enjoy doing it.

4. If at the end of your ‘free trial’ the habit doesn’t live up to at least two of the criteria listed above, dump it and move on because it’s not going to stick in the long run. If it checks at least two boxes, you have a winner. Instead of trying to force a habit to work into your life, spend your energy focusing on nurturing practices that help you find flow and ease throughout your day.

5. Rinse and repeat.

Since starting this silly little process of elimination experiment, I’ve been able to realize different things about myself, like how drinking apple cider vinegar in the name of health and wellness is something I quite literally cannot stomach or that spending at least 15 minutes in nature helps me think more clearly. I’ve felt so much more stable and open-minded towards my everyday life, more than I have in a while come to think of it, because now I know for a damn fact I’m taking concrete steps in the direction of growth and change for the better. Echoing the words of Writer Annie Dillard, how we spend our days is ultimately how we spend our lives. With each habit that we choose to assimilate into our lives, whether that choice is conscious or not, we are creating and solidifying the person we decided to be in this life. Although seemingly tiny at the moment, the little bites taken out of the ‘elephant’ are significant in hindsight. Just make sure that you make peace with the ‘elephant’ you decide to tackle, for once it’s eaten, there’s no going back in time.

💘 Hanna