INTRODUCTION: Tai Chi, whether you think of it as a martial art, health art or spiritual art remains a practice, and as such, requires knowledge, understanding and more than good intention if it is to be sustained. Traditionally, new students are given minimal help, being told to practice in the morning or evening. This advice is sufficient when a beginners enthusiasm runs high, but rarely lasts without the tools and support in place to ensure such a practice is maintained. Without guidance, new students become overwhelmed by the quantity of new moves, exercises and drills that accumulate and soon drop out of classes without a plan of not just what to practice, but how to practice. .

This guide to sustaining a healthy practice from creativity coach, Cherry Jeffs, will be of great benefit to you, whether you are a newbie or seasoned practitioner. Want more? Pick up the free ebook below, from Cherry, to get the bigger picture.

Make Space

Cherry Jeffs

The importance of creating your own “When,Then Plan”

It might come as a shock but I’m afraid the first thing you’ve got to do if you really want to get your new Tai Chi practice off the ground is to give something up!

It seems ludicrous that it needs spelling out, but it does:

If you want to ADD something else to your weekly schedule, you need to SUBTRACT something.

So start by asking yourself this tough question:

What am I prepared to give up to make this happen?

Because if you DON’T give up something, your best intentions will stay just that.

Intentions.

Start Right

The biggest mistake people make when starting a new habit is setting an initial daily goal that’s too ambitious! Starting any new habit is like training for a marathon. You don't start out on day one running 100k or even 10k. You start out by warming up by walking a bit, maybe running to the next lamp-post, walking a bit more. Then day 2 you do the same only maybe running two lamp-posts...So by all means dream big, but start really, really small.

I call this the 'minimum daily practice'. (Hint: 5 mins is NOT too short!)

Set Yourself up for Success

Studies show that you're 90% more likely to maintain a habit if you decide upfront:

WHERE you’re going to practice. (Literally, on the blue mat in front of my study window.)
WHEN - Which days and at what time. (It’s not essential to practice every day. Better to plan on 5 days and actually do them than plan 7 and do 5. Same result, totally different feeling of accomplishment.)
FOR HOW LONG you will do your MINIMUM practice. (Make your minimum practice VERY doable to start with. This is your bare bones. You can always do more if you're in the flow but your minimum is the least you can get away with 😉

Create a When, Then Plan

What will you do when life get’s in the way of your new practice? And, believe me, it will! Without a fall-back option you can easily be derailed by life’s ups and downs. That’s why you need what I call a When, Then Plan.

The importance of the When, Then Plan is that it helps keep the thread of your practice alive on the days when life gets in the way of your usual routine. This means you still get that dopamine high of “I did my practice!”, rather than a low of disappointment.

An example could be:

"When I can’t do my 15 mins Tai Chi practice in the park before work, I’ll do 5 minutes Qigong in my study before I go to bed."

Deciding in advance what your When, Then Plan is, will make sure you don’t get caught off guard when your normal schedule gets messed up.

Remove Friction

Set up your environment so that there are no external stumbling blocks to your practice. For example,

In order to fly, your first step is to reduce friction….

Tell the people you live with that you’re going to practice at such and such a time and you would be extremely grateful if they didn’t disturb you other than for something urgent.
If you’re planning to practice first thing in the morning, set the clothes you’ll wear out on a chair ready. This means you won’t derail yourself choosing your ideal practice clothes 🤣
If you’re going to be following a video, have the page already open to the lesson on your device before you go to bed. That way when you’re ready to start, you can just open the device and you’re ready to roll.

Get Accountability

Trying to achieve a new goal alone is just plain hard. We all need someone cheering on the sidelines to help keep us motivated when the going gets tough. One of the best ways of finding this support is to offer yours to someone else in return. In other words, find an accountability buddy. Look out for someone in your social circle online or IRL who is also trying to start a new habit. It doesn’t have to be Tai Chi or related in any way. All you need to do is check in with each other regularly. Just knowing someone is going to be asking you if you did your practice is a huge motivator to do it!

Add a date in your calendar

Here’s another 90% rule! 90% of people have failed to keep a new habit going by the 90-day mark. This is because, if you get two months under your belt, by the third month you’re at risk of getting complacent. You think you have your habit mastered! By day 100, you might start skipping days thinking you can easily pick up again later. This is natural and normal.

So I’d suggest you add a reminder to your calendar for 90 days after you started your new habit. At this point, review your progress. If you’ve lost the habit, don’t beat yourself up. Remember that’s you and 90% of everybody! The key here is to simply pick yourself up and restart. The ‘review’ step here is crucial. Were you too ambitious with your goal? Make it smaller! Did you remove friction from your environment? Did you get accountability? Figure out where you went wrong and return to the beginning steps of establishing your habit, this time adding some new strategies.