Lucy is 17 and has had a tough couple of years, from 15 her anxiety has built up to the point that she feels severe mood swings with long depressive episodes, then shorts burst of energy and an unbalanced optimism for small periods. This has led to Lucy needing some psychiatric support. This involves a lot of talking therapies to understand the trauma and medication to balance mood. The medication causes lethargy and the and Lucy to seek the comfort of bed and withdrawing. The talking therapy's are mentally exhausting with tiny pockets of energy where mental breakthroughs have happened. She feels fatigued and on edge as the focus of the environment is understandably dealing with challenging mental issues daily that need to be addressed. She feel withdrawn and constantly fatigued but doesn't sleep properly, she feel unattractive and unmotivated and has little desire to do makeup, her hair or even shower. She goes on social media and sees her friends falsely thriving as very few people post a bad pic or day.She is wrongly comparing her life to others with only a snapshot of their good lives not their struggles. She finds that she is not achieving anything and is a failure in life.
Lucys energy is all over the place, the drugs don't help, the environment is clinical, and it feels like she is missing out on stuff. These routines will need to be small for them to work on a daily basis.
Lucy takes a clever approach and identifies habits that are holding her back and that she wishes to address. The 3 immediate ones are, 1-Bad sleep habit, 2-Excessive snacking, and 3 -not attending to personal hygiene as much as she should. We can look at all the psychological factors for this and that would help, but the DOSE system is about immediately looking at the routines that help or hinder a good habit forming, the origin of bad routines can be addressed when she is at a stronger position. Look at DOSE as a scaffolding not the total design, and as an ER to get you back on track.
Lucy then list out the routines that would build the good habits she wishes to build which area good sleep system, healthy snacking habit, and a daily clean and presentable habit.
Lucy’s has ensured the Habit goals are achievable in the 28 days timeline, which will keep her motivated. She will be going against some deeply embedded routines such as us social media late at night, excessive snacking as a way of coping with stress. Any process of long term improvement will lead to a massive positive change in her life.
The biggest demotivator is working daily to an unobtainable goal or one that has metric that are influenced by other factors at this point beyond you're control. For example Lucy needs to focus on hours asleep rather than how many hours in deep REM sleep that she can't control.
These are daily routines for your life, having routines that make you feel good are part of what gives you a happy life. Some essential stuff we have to do that is less fun (pay taxes), but if there is an alternative routine that is more fun do it . For example Lucy hates meditation it makes her overthink, but she is less critical on herself when journaling and recording her day so make that part of her night-time sleep routine.
Lucy has looked at 3 manageable routines for each to help build core habits. What is crucial is to look at low motivation routines or rewarding routines that help build the habit first. A good example is Lucy’s core routines, making a nice sleep environment with scents gives her an intrinsic benefit. No screens after 10pm is going to be a challenge as she has embedded habits of screens to get to sleep. Her target of 5hrs sleep is a good realistic first goal that hopefully can expand. Choosing reasonable 50% targets on goals to on other core Habits is setting up realistic expectations. The key thing to comprehend is that an improvement of 50% on a crucial Habit is a massive achievement that will eventually lead to massive positive life changes.
Lucy has decided she needs a daily system so she will give it a go. She has given it a great deal of thought and understands there is a need and a desire to do this. She was unsure on the first 3 habits but fortunately has a good friend and support worker who gave their honest opinion.
Her most crucial habit she wants to form is to get back into studying and has focused on History study for A level as her prime goal. Her second is to build a habit of reaching out to her friends & family more, this causes her anxiety (even planning this) so with guide of support worker she has a framework of light communication. Her 3rd Habit is to get outside more for her mental health so she wants to build the habit of hiking.
HABIT 1 - STUDY: So for Lucy's First Core Habit which is to study History she has set a reasonable 2hrs a day as her success metric which is 56 hrs in the 28 day process. Now she needs 3 routines that make that habit work with anchor points. An anchor point is a key factor that links the routine to a daily occurrence like do the routine after breakfast. So first routine is to do an hour study after breakfast every day. Second is to put her favourite ambient music on to relax and focus whilst studying. Her third routine is to always study on her bedroom desk and to associate her bedroom desk as study area. These seem like basic things but they go to build the right environment and process to succeed.
HABIT 2 - Keeping in Contact with friends and family: This is Lucys habit to reach out to all friends and family so she feels less isolated and doesn't go in that negative loop off feeling ignored by ignoring people. She uses the Anchor point of after dinner her first routine is to call or msg one friend or family. With her support worker she has a list of responses that let people know she feels triggered by the conversation and has to politely end it and catch up again at a later date. An example is "thanks for chatting, discussing certain stuff is hard for me so I am glad I reached out but don't wish to go into detail on these matters. I look forward to chatting again soon." Her second routine is to have a list of responses close by so if she needs to end conversation she does it in a way that is not alienating for both parties. Her 3rd is to have a tick list of all the people she intends to reach out to so she does not just focus on a small band of her family and friends.
HABIT 3 - Hiking: Lucy knows she must get out and about more but doesn't want to be around big crowds. Hiking seems ideal, she has never done it before so this is a bit of an adventure. She has classed her walks out each day as a mini hike - whether its through a park or just around local area, and her big hike on weekend. She has classed a walk of 30 mins as her mini hike, and a walk of 4 plus hrs as her big hike. Hef first routine is to have her walking gear ready before bed the night before (boots for weekend and trainers for mini hike) seeing them in the morning gives her a reminder prompt. Her second routine is to have a reward at end of each hike (starbucks coffee for mini hike, and take away or pub snack at weekend hike.) . Her 3rd routine is to keep a hiking log to record each hike and mini hike crossing off different routes.
This is as crucial to Lucy as her Core habits as she gets massively affected by her environment. The 1st Support Habit is to have a tidy room and study area. The 2nd Support Habit is to limit her Social media usage to 30 mins a day, she is going to quickly post content and ghost, turning comments off. This is the largest factor in her life that changes her mood state, she finds she gets invested in arguments on posts that have no relevance to her life. Her 3rd Support Habit is to focus on is to meditate she knows this will help with her general anxeity and give her a calmer approach to problems.
The three routines that help build these Support Habits are quite straight forward for Lucy, as are the anchor points that prompt to do them
SUPPORT HABIT 1 - TIDY ENVIRONMENT: So for Lucy's 1st Support Habit which is to have a clean environment, she has set aside 45 mins a day, her 3 Support Routines - 1st Routine - Make bed. 2nd routine - Clean wipe surfaces, and wash up, and 3rd routine is to sweep/hover floors.. She feels silly writing them down in a plan as they are so rudimental, but the bottom line is she is hardly doing them regularly. Her Anchor point is to do this every day straight after breakfast. She realises how much she avoids stuff she doesn't even mind doing but doesn't do, she knows what she does instead......
SUPPORT HABIT 2 - LIMIT SOCIAL MEDIA - 30min/day: This is Lucy's biggest challenge, as this is her biggest time bandit and a source of great anxiety and unfair comparisions. So why go on it, because for Lucy and many others she feels alienated from peers if not on it. Her plan was to ignore it totally but she knows its a mental drug that stimulates dopamine by all those swipes. She is going to try 30 mins a day, planning to do it 30mins before dinner (anchor point) so she knows she has a reward for her discipline. The 3 routines to help this are No 1 routine - 2 timers set one on the phone and one on the other side of room that she has to actively hit. Her 2nd routine is that she is going to write in her journal each day the minutes spent so she keeps a log. The 3rd routine is she is going to tell her friends she is only doing 30 mins a day on it so if no reply to a comment its because staying on it is screwing with her mental health. Those that understand and support her are true friends and family. (This is a clever way of getting community support).
Lucy wants to Zumba, she has a crush on a boy who is a really good dancer and loves how confident he is when dancing. She believes Latin dancing is the most confident dancing of all, and why not get fit and dance! She is starting off with a youtube class that is live streamed from home and when circumstances feel better she will go to real classes with others. she does not need 3 routines for a fun habit, she just needs to do it every day for 30 mins.
Developing the routines and repeating it instinctively is the only focus you need and is an amazing achievement!
Lucy knows she can be easily put off by constant changing and procrastination. She understands that by sticking to 28 days of doing routines to form Habits is a massive achievement in its self, GO LUCY!!!. She is committed to the programme and will evaluate at the end of the period. She also knows if she doesnt design her routines Anxiety, Depression and Tik Tok will, which will lead to bad sleep, bad eating, not getting out, being untidy. All of these take routines to build and are usually AVOIDANCE routines.
Lucy is raring to go on building her new life, she wants to hit 100% and then she will be happy. Luckily this approach is tempered by a support worker who reminds her good habits take time to build and take time to bear fruit. Together they target 50% score each day, and this approach is a major element of Lucy's success in the future.
So Lucy tackles the data sheet first, and after advice she makes it really simple. First she lists her meals as she keeps on forgetting to eat and ends up bing snacking late at night, so she plans to limit to two healthy snacks and 1 treat. So her 3 Habits to build, study, contact friends & family and Hiking. Lucy has been really clever here and put her study in 30 min chunks, and her hiking as 15 min walks. She wants to study for 2hours, and walk for 30 mins a day at least. By making her routines small and easy to do she is setting herself for realist success. Somedays her success will be just applying herself other days it will be hitting the targets, both are a true successes!
So now we are listing support routines to build those Supporting Habits. First for Lucy is to tidy environment and she breaks it down to Tidy bedroom, bathroom & Kitchen. She then plans for a morning meditation and unintentionally helps herself by anchoring to after breakfast on a list. A reminder habit will make it an easier routine to do. She puts in two precious slots on her list for social media, one in morning one in evening. She makes a mistake not linking the end of her routine to an anchor habit that will help stop her using Tik-Tok for too long a time period. For Lucy it would be good to structure dinner at 5pm and her Tik-Tok time at 4:30pm. The need of dinner prompting the end of a prior routine.
Lucy feels the Gratitude thing is weird and pointless what has she to feel lucky for? After 28 day it will show something different.
Lucy gets the DOSE section and starts to read from the links provided and more. She is amazed how these chemicals can have such a profound effect on her life and mood.
Lucy has chosen that her Focus Of The Day (FOD) is going to be the same for all 28 days and thats doing 2hrs study. She feels that this is most important thing right now, she really wants to go to University. The Dump part makes her laugh off Brain dump so she sets off to put her darkest stuff here. She also likes the quote of the day but wants less dead people quotes there, whats happened to more relevant stuff and people, like Kayne (genius and troubled).
Lucy found looking into her Key Routines to build Habits and Support Routines to build Support Habits a clear pathway to building them. Each desired habit built out of 3 routines didn't seem enough but her support worker Elizabeth and friend Judy made her see the first step is to starting building habits and if they are formed from just 3 routines then awesome and if not she has part built a habit in only 28 days.
Lucy has opted for it as a task list rather than a time planner and has added some much needed colour to this ship. She has put each habits 3 routines on one side and each support habits on the other. This ticking boxes is much more satisfying than she realised. She works out to build each habit a day she needs to do 18 routines - that seems clearer than time management to her. (I love her adaptation - and will try it myself on my next DOSE Cycle).
Just before her night time routine of mediating for 15mins before bed Lucy completes her review of the day, noting that focusing on DOSE gets her 40% and the FOD is another 10% which is 50%. This is a quick and easy way to review the day and Lucy has a surprising good feeling doing this - more on section 4.
Just before her night time routine of mediating for 15mins before bed Lucy completes her review of the day, noting that focusing on DOSE gets her 40% and the FOD is another 10% which is 50%. This is a quick and easy way to review the day and Lucy has a surprising good feeling doing this - more on section 4.