I was fortunate to have the time and flexibility in my life in 2018 to ingrain two daily habits. The first is a short routine of Active Isolated Flexibility, AIF, which I learned from Phil Wharton. The second is simply twenty minutes of silent meditation each morning. The AIF work takes me less than ten minutes, though it should take longer, as I rushed through the routine most days. For the meditation I use a free app called Insight Timer that has a starting and ending bell, so the time is set. Finally, I use an app called Streaks, which costs five dollars, that was no doubt helpful as I can track these two habits.

I started doing the AIF work in December of 2017. My guess is I did it twenty to twenty-five days that month, with the obvious goal being to establish a habit of doing AIF each day in 2018. What happened? I was able to do AIF 358 days out of 365 in 2018, so ninety-eight percent of the time. I missed seven days. [Read more…]