The mindfulness of micropractice

Significant change is scary. Whether it’s the new year or the old year, it’s hard for us to commit to changing. I’ve consistently sworn every new year to read more, lose weight, stress less and study harder. I commit to big things. Run three miles every day! Read a book every month! Meditate for an hour every night! Get straight As! However, as soon as I break the new and improved — and imaginary — cycle, I blame myself and resolve to do better — 365 days later.

I set my alarm dutifully, write cleanly on neon Post-its I’ll stick in plain sight and put reminders into my calendar. I write resolutions in my notebook or on the corner of my laptop because, theoretically, those are places I can’t avoid. I can. I’ll keep them about a month, until finals week hits, and I brush away my confidence and admit defeat.

We are all striving to keep our sanity, kindness and sleep balanced. Instead of viewing lost commitments as failures, why not treat commitment the same way we’ve learned to be successful in every other area, by starting small?

I call it “micropractice,” although it’s not my copyright. I learned it from a workshop hosted by Chris McKenna, program director of Mindful Schools. Micropractice is simple: believe you can better yourself during minute-long intervals. Basically, don’t settle for a self-imposed status quo. Snap yourself in and out of mindfulness and, in the process, train yourself to commit to better practices.

If the journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step, so does the journey of achieving any goal. We should commit to appreciating one’s ability to breathe, running for five minutes, reading one page, instead of getting frustrated with unrealistic expectations and hating ourselves if we cannot cross far away finish lines.

As the semester’s impending end fills us with self-doubt, let’s remember to give ourselves a break. Micropractice can work for anyone, as it suggests setting your commitment to yourself and to no one else. Appreciate the vivid, fleeting color of the leaves, the smell of (relatively) fresh coffee in Frist Campus Center or the patience of a teaching assistant who replies to a frantic email. Understand and forgive yourself for oversleeping, skipping the gym or putting off that essay to daydream an hour longer. Believe that small changes beget medium changes which beget big changes, and that domino effect is yours to tip in your favor if you begin, humbly, with one.

Of course, I cannot say that meditation is for everyone, but I do believe that micropractice is. Whatever your goals are, be they running marathons, reading novels or applying to jobs, start small. Micropractice is both about setting reasonable goals and forgiving yourself for not achieving the big ones. I argue these are one and the same.

Sixty seconds of mindfulness per day sustains me for, at the very least, the forthcoming couple of minutes. If I remember to emotionally photograph five minutes of my day, I feel like a rock star. If I forget, well, remembering that I did forget reminds me to remember again in the first place.

Every person owns the forthcoming moment; it is in our power to ask what it wants. It wants to be remembered for brightening your day, for reminding you to take a deep breath of Blair Arch air, for closing your eyes to the insecurity of feeling smaller than your peers, for enjoying the unintended nap in those dangerously soporofic East Pyne chairs. Feel indulgent about small changes in order to pride yourself with the bigger ones, because our time here is too short to keep feeling like we are less than we can be.

Azza Cohen is a history major fromHighland Park, Ill. She can be reached at accohen@princeton.edu.