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Certain:  not having any doubt about something : convinced or sure

Sure: confident in what one thinks or knows; having no doubt that one is right.

I finished listening to the audiobook “What I know for sure” written and read by Oprah Winfrey.  I love to listen to her voice and her insights.  This question was asked of her in an interview years ago, it has now become a book.  I thought it would be fun to think about what I know for sure without mulling it and write down what came to my mind. Here is my list that I turned into a poem.   Should I be sure or certain of what I know? Those two little words are similar but yet different, in my head they bring a different feeling to what I think I know for sure.

Am I sure or certain?

In no specific order, free flowing, pell-mell

I am certain that I love my Public Library from whence I borrowed that audiobook.  (I am happy that I found a way to use the word whence).

I know for sure that I have two daughters and that I love them.

I know for sure that I am happy to have created my blog.

I know for sure I enjoy food, especially cheese.   

I am certain there is cheese in my refrigerator.

I know for sure I am an emotional eater.  

I am certain that I can exercise but I often chose not to.  

I know for sure that I made a resolution to go walk the dog instead of just playing in the yard.

I know for sure that he doesn’t like other dogs.  I know for sure that is the reason I don’t take him on popular hikes.

I know for sure that I love to read.  I am certain that the next book will find its way to me.

I know fo sure that I have no regrets because I have made peace with myself by creatingsomething better.  

I am certain that everything that has happened and all the decisions I made in the past have brought me to this point in my life.

I know for sure I feel happy.

I know for sure that I have some unhealthy habits that I should be able to brake and

replace by better ones.  (Listening to “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg)

I am pretty sure that I have created two new habits which I didn’t realize I had done until I started to listen to the book mentioned above.  I am on Part II of the book.  I have used information from his book in the first paragraph of my blog.

Definition of habit: a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

“A habit is an action you do frequently and automatically in response to something in your environment.”

Habits are not something you necessarily do every day but they are recurrent behaviors.   It is possible to change a habit by changing the environment or cues that have caused it to form.  One habit that I need to break is my emotional eating habit. In order to break a habit I need to create a new cue, (situation), action (behavior) and reward.   The new cue will guide the behavior. The reward is not the prize you get at the end, it will need to occur right after the new behavior and boost that action in order to work.  I have some work to do: identify the environment that causes the behavior then reward my new good behavior and voila, a brand new habit is formed. According to habit studies it can take from 18 to 256 days to form a new habit.  Am I up to the challenge? I hope so.

“If you focus on choosing the right small actions, building the right environment, and using the right small rewards, the habit you build will be stronger and develop faster.” (Routine Excellence blog)

My new first habit started back in October when my cousin and I decided that we were going to hike together on a new trail at least twice a month.   We have always enjoyed walking in nature together, we would organize a hike in the summer with our teenagers, we would also go on our own long walk during our families visits.  Those walk allowed us to get to know each other much better but were not as satisfying as the ones we had gone on with our families. We decided it would be fun to discover new trails and get our exercise in the process.  We had such a good time on our first hike that we planned our second one on the spot. We hike at least twice a month, more depending on the season, the last two were spent snowshoeing. Our hiking habit is here to stay, I cannot imagine not driving the hour to hour and fifteen minutes it takes me to meet her, to me it is far from an inconvenience.  She lives a lot closer to the trails then I do. The time spent together is full of laughter and sharing stories, we have been witnesses of our personal growth. Our reward is a feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration for all the steps we have taken that day and the feeling of awe we get from the beautiful nature that surround us. I am looking forward to our next hike.

My second new habit is linked to my first new habit.  I love how much I am learning through books either by reading them or by listening to them.  This past fall my local library sent out an email to let their patrons know that thanks to a grant we now had access to hundreds of audiobooks.  It was great timing as I was going on a long airplane ride, I am not always in the mood to watch a movie on a plane, I often get too tired to read.  So I downloaded the Libby app which is very easy to use for. I know you can get a lot more books from Amazon audible but I wasn’t sure how often I would use the service or if I would enjoy listening to books as I prefer to read them and take notes.   Before my trip I downloaded three books to listened to on the plane there and back, I also had purchased a book which I read in record time in my hotel room. I started playing my audiobook while driving to the meeting point for the first hike instead of listening to the radio.  I enjoyed it so much that now each time I drive for twenty minutes or more I play an audiobook. I cannot imagine leaving the house for a long drive or plane ride without at least a couple of audiobooks to listen to. I enjoy having a book read to me, it keeps me company and provide me tidbits of information that make for some great conversations with my cousin during our hikes.  In the past couple of years my taste in books has changed, I used to only read novels or mysteries, nowadays I am reading books that help me grow personally. I still enjoy reading novels especially when I am on vacation but I have not spent much time browsing that section lately. My routine is no longer routine, I am opened to the changes that books and people bring me, those changes have made me feel more grounded and happier.  As my daily routine changes so do my habits, for the better I think.