The change gurus tell us that the way to make lasting change – and surely personal change is one of the most difficult of human tasks, else why do we fail so often ? – is to make small incremental habit changes. Gradually, each small change is stacked one upon another as bricks in the wall until one day a new person emerges. The only people who view this as a linear experience are the ones who believe in a land where unicorns frolic under rainbows with pots of bitcoin at either end, or that watching or making TikTok videos is a great way to spend your time. Change, like the sea, is an up and down process.
I have no doubt this model of change works for some people some of the time. But even small habits changes can require large doses of grit. Eating junk food or smoking cigarettes. On the surface, these are pretty small habit changes, eat eggs for breakfast instead of oatmeal or any other breakfast cereal (which is basically just sugar), or, stop smoking, not buying cigarettes will basically ensure you never smoke again. In reality, both of these habit changes are infinitely more difficult due to complex reward sequences wired into our brains, and, as anyone who has tried to quit addictive substances will attest to, neither of these small changes are easy at all.
As do most folks, I have a couple of morning habits – with the exception of coffee which is actually a requirement to life not a habit – the first is to meditate for 10 minutes, the second is to walk for an hour (unless I have plans to go rock climbing, or bushwalking, or any other thing that will entail a minimum one hour walk). Neither of these things are really hard, but some days, it’s hard to follow through.
Take today, I’m stiff and a bit sore from the activities of the week – paddling and climbing on my home wall on Monday, trail running and strength training on Tuesday, rock climbing on Wednesday – and I could easily make another coffee and see what’s happening with the Twitter files, but, #habits. So, off I go walking. Habits are much easier to keep if you simply do not indulge in rethinking them.
All the pictures in today’s blog post are from the “work in progress” Batemans Bay Coastal Headlands Walking Trail. This trail has been a long time coming (around 2010) but is finally being upgraded although it will not be finished until 2024. Late last week, walking along the track between Denhams and Surf Beaches, I noticed that there was new flagging and recent clearing of overgrown areas, and later that day, when we paddled south from our home beach to go surf kayaking, I saw some guys in fluorescent work-wear clearing the track along the cliff edge.
A couple of days after that, on my usual morning walk, I strolled through the reserve to Caseys Beach and followed the route of the Headlands Walking Trail around to Sunshine Cove and south almost all the way to Denhams Beach. What a delight. The little track had been getting quite overgrown and difficult to navigate, but it has been cleared all the way south to what will be one of the final lookouts on this section of track before the route detours around private property.
This track will be a real asset to both the community and visitors as the scenery is lovely, there are multiple points to access the track and either end is accessible by local transit. It’s great to see work finally underway. Particularly nice for locals, who’ve been walking along this track for years is the now clear delineation between public and private land. Quite a few properties that back onto the track have, over the years, expanded their back gardens into the reserve and walking the reserve, although public space, has felt uncomfortable.
For sure my #habit of early morning walking just got way, way easier as I can simply stroll down the street and onto the track.
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