An update on my January and February habits

At the beginning of the year, motivated by reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, I set myself some habits that I wanted to add to my daily routines. Some simple things that I could do every day which would improve my health and wellbeing.

Here's how I've been getting on!

Photo credit Phrophsee Journals via Unsplash

I had four habits which I wanted to keep permanently - regular exercise, eating more fruit and veg, practising the piano daily and daily meditation.

Exercise - I've continued my existing exercise habits which I'm pleased with, especially when it came to dragging myself out for a run on the bitter January mornings. I have a regular exercise routine which suits me well, although I do wonder if I should mix it up a bit for the future.

Eat more fruit and veg - This one has gone really well. I now drink a glass of orange juice each morning with breakfast and I add more raisins to my cereal. For lunch I've been eating either a bowl of soup or some homemade bean salad, each of which I count as two portions. Most of my dinners have at least two servings of veg but if they don't then I'll add in a portion or broccoli or peas and I'll have an apple in the evening. I'm pretty confident that I've been getting at least my five a day on the vast majority of days.

Piano practice - This is also going really well. I've been playing every day apart from when we have been away and I'm really pleased that I can now memorise some pieces. I can play two pieces confidently from memory and I am almost there with a third.

Meditation - I downloaded a brilliant app called Smiling Mind which is free and has a huge range of meditations and mindfulness exercises. I've been doing one most days and it has also encouraged me to be more mindful throughout the day. I'm definitely getting better at focussing my mind and pushing away negative thoughts. 

In addition I chose two extra habits for January - to stop mindlessly checking the news and to write a blog post each day.

Stop checking the news - This was very successful in January. I didn't check the news once and it really had a positive impact on my mental health. I continued into February and was a little less sucessful as we went away on holiday for half term and my usual routines were disrupted. It also coincided with the news from Ukraine, and although I have really cut back on my news intake it has risen slightly recently. I need to keep on top of this one as it really did make a big difference.

Write a blog post every day - This habit was also incredibly successful. I wrote and published or scheduled a blog post every day and now I have lots of blog posts scheduled, with the option to publish sooner if I need to fill a spot. I started this again in February, but the transcription work that I do from home picked up a bit and so I had to prioritise that.

I didn't set new habits for February but I did set myself a daily challenge which was to spend a few minutes each day decluttering the garage. I sorted out a massive pile of cardboard for recycling, finally did the trip to the tip that we had been putting off for a couple of years, got rid of lots of odds and endsd that were cluttering the place up and had a bit of a clean up. Now it's much emptier, so in the summer when the weather is better I'm planning to clear it as much as I can and give it a really good clean. It definitely needs one, we have some enormous cobwebs! 

I find that daily habits really work for me and I love seeing the difference that they can make. I will continue with my four main habits in March although I've not set any new ones. Although I am intending to be making some healthier food choices as we head towards summer and beach holidays, I have a bit of winter padding that needs to go!

Photo credit Elijah M. Henderson via Unsplash

Learning to memorise pieces on the piano

A few months ago I reviewed a book on my blog - Notes on the Piano. I took a lot from the book, and one thing was the importance of learning to play pieces from memory. I had always needed sheet music to play and I assumed that playing a piece by heart was a skill that that some people were born with and I wasn't. 

Photo credit Elijah M. Henderson via Unsplash

But the book inspired me, and so one of my habits for the new year was to practice the piano every day with a view to memorising some pieces. Partly to help with improving my playing, and partly so that I could show off if I ever found myself in front of a piano before a potential audience!

I chose to start with The Snow Prelude No. 3 by Ludivico Einaudi. I chose this piece because I could already play it quite well from the music. I thought I had a simplified version but actually it's almost the same as the one in the video below. It's quite repetitive, the chords in the left hand are repeated almost all the way through and the melody in the right hand is easy to remember, and I think it sounds really good when it's all put together. 

To my surprise it only took me just over a week, practicing 20 minutes a day or so, to learn it by heart. When I first had it memorised I was still making mistakes but now I can play it through flawlessly. 

Buoyed by my success I moved on to a slightly more difficult piece, River Flows in You by Yiruma. This is a beautiful piece and I longed to be able to play it well. The music that I have for this one is definitely a simplified version! But I think it still sounds good, even though my hands are quite small so I sometimes struggle to span the octave.

This piece took me a lot longer to learn. It is repetitive but also subtly different in places. The final page took me over a week on its own - for some reason I just couldn't get it. But after about three weeks I finally got it to a standard that I can get through it with only a very rare mistake. I'm continuing playing it daily to iron out those last hiccups.

I'm now working on Moonlight Sonata (1st Movement) by Beethoven. When I was at school I remember other girls playing this on the piano and I was desperate to play it. I bought myself a copy of the sheet music, but the version I own was just too difficult. I now have a book with a much simpler version in and I can play it through following the notes. It sounds repetitive but it's not, there are lots of variations in the notes. Even though my version is quite easy I'm still struggling to get on with it, but I'm determined to crack it!

I've really impressed myself with my progress. I've loved the whole process of learning the piece, from being able to play it following the music to learning small parts at a time, and gradually building up a sort of mental picture of the piece in my head. 

I'm sure that there are some people that don't have to put in quite as much effort as I do. But it has really brought it home to me that when most people that are displaying some kind of talent it really is down to them having put in a great deal of work and effort, it doesn't just happen.

Maybe at some point I'll have the confidence to share some videos of myself playing these pieces!