Breaking old habits, forming new & better ones –

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According to Chat GTP, it takes on average 66 days to break an old habit, or form a new one. That’s a bit over two months.

In my November Challenge, I broke two bad habits and I formed a new one: I took salt and processed sugar out of my eating plans, and I established a routine of going for a walk each day. If I couldn’t walk for whatever reason, I did 45 minutes hard on my indoor bike.

You know when a habit forms when you feel guilty that you’re not doing it.
Simple as that.

And you know when you’ve finally kicked a bad habit to the curb when its desire holds no further allure for you.

I knew when I’d broken my addiction to chocolate this past week when I didn’t buy my favourite Toblerone when it was on special. If I’d bought it, I would’ve eaten it.

I didn’t buy it.

I probably need a second month to really cement all this in place, and so I’m continuing my November Challenge into December. And I’m adding one more thing – 45 minutes of weights/yoga/meditation before I go out for my walk.

In the best selling book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear – (I highly recommend it if you haven’t already read it) – the author lays out the four main steps to Behaviour Change:

The Four Laws of Behavior Change:

• Make It Obvious: Identify the cues and ensure they’re visible.

• Make It Attractive: Pair habits with something enjoyable or align them with your identity.

• Make It Easy: Reduce friction; simplify actions to make starting easier.

• Make It Satisfying: Use positive reinforcement to encourage consistency.

3. The Power of Small Changes:

• Focus on improving by just 1% every day. Over time, these small gains compound into significant results.

• Similarly, small errors or negative habits compound in the opposite direction.

4. Identity-Based Habits:

• Rather than focusing solely on outcomes (e.g., losing weight), focus on the kind of person you want to become (e.g., “I am a healthy eater”).

• This shift makes habits align with your self-image, increasing their likelihood of sticking.

5. Habit Stacking:

• Attach a new habit to an existing one to create a chain of actions (e.g., “After I brush my teeth, I will meditate for one minute”).

6. The Role of Environment:

• Shape your surroundings to support your habits. Make good habits easier and bad habits harder by adjusting your environment.

7. The Plateau of Latent Potential:

• Change often appears invisible at first. Progress requires persistence, as results come after crossing a “breakthrough point.”

8. The Goldilocks Rule:

• Habits are most effective when they are in the sweet spot of difficulty—not too hard, not too easy.

For me, the two important factors that make habit changing doable are:

  • Habit stacking
  • Making it easy.

Habit stacking means that I can’t go out for my walk if I don”t do my 45 mins of exercise/yoga/meditation first. The exercise/yoga/meditation is stacked onto the walk. I can’t do one without the other. So if I really want to do my walk, then I have to do the exercise/yoga/meditation first.

Making it easy means that 45 mins of exercise/yoga/meditation is broken down into 10 mins intense weights, 20 mins of yoga, 15 mins of meditation.

Now, ten minutes of weights, or pushups or sit-ups or other vigorous exercise, is nothing. Nor is 20 mins of yoga. Once I get into my yoga I find 30 mins slips by without my even noticing. Similarly 15 mins of meditation – usually it strings out to 25-30 mins.

But I have to make this achievable each day – so there’s no point setting goals that aren’t practical for my daily life. 45 mins is something I can do – it’s no big deal.

As I age, I realise how important this is. It’s so easy as you get older to find yourself “rusting up.” You can’t bend like you used to. You can’t swivel to look behind you or check your blind spot while driving like you used to.

Yoga fixes that.
It’s the greatest lubricant for rusty bodies that I know.

Next year is going to be huge for Jennifer and me. We’ve got a massive Q&A road tour throughout the US and Canada, and then onto Germany, Austria and Switzerland starting early Feb through to end of May. Then in September we begin production on another film.

We’ll need to be in peak physical condition. This December Challenge will go some way to achieving that – and more importantly, establishing a routine which we can then take with us on the road.

My November Challenge is over – what did I learn?

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On this, the last day of the November Challenge, I went for a walk in the rain.

It was glorious.
I felt great!

I got soaking wet, but it didn’t matter. I felt energised, I felt fit, I felt 10 years younger than my biological age. (Which is 71, by the way.)

What’s my November Challenge?
Towards the end of October, I set myself a challenge for November. That I would:

– Take a walk of no less than 45 mins each day.
– Put no added salt on my food.
– Eat no processed sugar – chocolate, sweets, ice cream etc.

I set myself this challenge because I had, for a long long time, added salt to whatever meal was put in front of me regardless of how the food tasted. It had become a habit I couldn’t break. Similarly, chocolate after dinner at nights. It was not uncommon for Jennifer and me (mainly me!) to demolish a whole block of Whittaker’s whilst watching telly of an evening.

Not good.
Good, but not good!
Things had to change.
Hence, my November Challenge.

Well, the good news is that I’ve broken the salt and sugar / chocolate addictions.

During the month I’ve had no chocolate, no sweets, no ice cream or gelato. None of it. And I’ve not put salt on any of my food, And coming into December, I’ll hold fast to these mandates.

I was in the supermarket yesterday and I noticed that the particular type of Toblerone chocolate that I used to crave – honey and nougat – was half price. I had no desire to buy it. Normally if it’s half price I’d have bought two.

Not yesterday.
Nup.
No way.
And not tomorrow either.

As for my exercise – you’d think a minimum of 45mins walking a day for 30 days straight would be no trouble for a Camino walker such as myself, however because I’m now 6 ½ years into Parkinson’s, walking for any stretch has become difficult. But other than time off whilst I was travelling this month, I managed to keep to my schedule.

Lately I’ve been doing 4.5km walks at an average of just under 5km/hr – which for me with this PD, that’s good going. I used to be able to do 6.25-6.5km/hr before I took on this condition, but hey, I’m also getting older. There’s that too.

Some days during this November challenge I mixed up my walks with sessions on my indoor bike, and that was useful because on the bike I could push more into my cardio zones. There’s no doubt that at the end of this month, I feel way fitter and way healthier than at the start of the month.

I haven’t lost that much weight (see chart below), but that’s okay – this wasn’t about weight loss. This was about taking back control of my mind. Which I’ve done.

So I’m going to continue my November Challenge into December – which will be harder because of Christmas and the holiday period – but I’ve decided I’m going to add one more thing to my list: 45 mins of exercise and meditation before my walk. Ten minutes of weights, twenty minutes of yoga, and mediation for fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes of yoga isn’t much, nor is 15 mins of meditation, but it’s a start.

I’ve found the trick to these challenges is to keep the bar low – make the goals achievable. You can always outperform if you have the time and/or the inclination. Set the goals too large, then it becomes an impediment each day to even try.

They say it takes roughly 66 days to establish a habit. That’s a bit over two months. So if I can continue this through December, come the start of 2025 I’ll be in a good place.

All up, this November challenge has been very worthwhile!

November Challenge StatsDownload

November Challenge – 2 wks in ~

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I’m two weeks into my November Challenge, and this is my Report Card.
I’d give myself a B+.

The challenge I set myself for the month of November was:
– A walk each day of no less than 45 mins.
– No added salt on my food.
– No processed sugar.

Pretty simple you might think, huh?
Well, actually, no.
It was damn hard.
Salt and sugar have been my two major addictions.
I’d put salt on everything.
Chocolate was my real weakness.

I needed a circuit breaker.
Hence, the November Challenge.

The stats are in the spreadsheet below, but basically last week Jennifer and I drove up to Avoca to attend the Coastal Surge International Film Festival, organised by Glenn Fraser and Amelia Foxton – which was great fun. Then onto Brisbane to see my mum, who’s 97 yrs old. A round trip of 2,200km in five days.

On four of those days I wasn’t able to exercise. What with the long days driving (sometimes 700km+ in a day, with very early starts and socialising at the festival and family get togethers and what-have-you, it simply wasn’t possible.

The good news is though that I’ve gone the full two weeks without adding salt to any of my meals. And I’ve not had any chocolate, no sweets, no ice-cream… except ~

I fell off the wagon twice. Both were social occasions. Once at a family dinner when my sister put out some dessert and it would have been rude of me to refuse!

The other was a dinner hosted by a Camino friend. She’d just come back from walking the Frances and she and her husband put on fabulous spread that included nougat (I’m a sucker for nougat!) and home-made ice-cream.

Did I say I fell off the wagon?
I did a high dive off a 25m platform!

Two times I had sugar. And I have to say each day after I felt nauseous. My body couldn’t handle the major sugar hit. It was very interesting.

With the walks, sometimes it wasn’t possible to walk so I did 45mins on the indoor bike. I’ve got a gym quality bike set up in our tv room so I’d watch a Liverpool Premier League game or the next episode of Disclaimer and cycle 45mins.

The bike’s good because I can push myself harder than if I was walking (because of my bung knee) – but there’s nothing better than getting out early on a crisp spring Mudgee morning and starting your day with a brisk walk.

Walking also strengthens tendons and muscles and ligaments that are activated by walking on uneven ground, or up and down hills. I’ve found that the walking has also strengthened my back muscles considerably. I have two metal plates screwed into my spine and I get fairly regular back pain. The walking has helped alleviate the pain.

Overall, the biggest benefit of the two weeks is that I’ve broken the addiction urges. I’ve discovered that having salt, eating sugar, is a choice.

Before this, it wasn’t a choice. I’d sit down to a meal, I’d immediately put salt on my food. Choice never entered into it. That’s just what I did.

Similarly, at night after dinner I’d sit down to watch telly with Jennifer and I’d break out a block of chocolate. Rarely did we finish the night’s viewing with any of that chocolate left.

We devoured it.
I devoured it.

That hasn’t happened this past fortnight.
I’ve kicked that habit.

I’m only halfway through so we’ll see how I go the next two weeks, but so far it’s been a very worthwhile exercise.

But really, it’s a bit sad I need to go to these extreme lengths, don’t you think?

Day#3 – November Challenge – Birthday Cake!

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Today was complicated.

A birthday party for my granddaughter, two years old. There was a birthday cake. Do I make an exception for a slice of cake at my granddaughter’s 2nd year birthday party?

I’m into my third day of my November Challenge. A 45 minute (minimum) walk each day, and no added salt or sugar for the month.

Back to the birthday cake.
It was my granddaughter’s 2nd birthday, after all.
And look at that cake…
Everyone else at the party – grandparents both side,
my son, his wife,
even the birthday girl herself – they were all eating cake.

Not me.
I can’t break my November Challenge.
There’ll always be a good reason to make an exception.
Addiction is sly.
Temptation is a slippery slope.
You either make a commitment and stick to it, or you don’t.
I abstained.

I had to do my walk early, before driving 4hrs to Sydney for the birthday party.
51mins / 4.1km / my weight stable at 82.5kg.

Tomorrow is going to be even more difficult. Very early start, meetings back to back, then a 4hr drive back to Mudgee, then dinner at the local pub for the Mudgee Camino group.

Where will there be time to do my walk?
I’m discovering that every day presents a different challenge.

Day#2 November Challenge – my first real test.

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Did I say I love chocolate?
Did I say I was addicted to chocolate?
Did I say that not having chocolate for a month would be my biggest challenge?

Last night, Day#1 of my November Challenge, I faced my first real test. I always make Jennifer a cup of tea after dinner, and we usually sit down to watch telly – with a bar (or two) of chocolate with the cup of tea.

Last night I had to hand over a bar (or two) of chocolate to Jennifer with her cup of tea – and not have any myself.

We usually have Whittaker’s chocolate, made in New Zealand – and it’s delicious. Last night’s chocolate was Pear with Manuka Honey. Can you really think of anything more yummy than that?

I can’t.
It was difficult.
But I met the test.
I abstained.

This morning I did my walk again. I did 4.14km in 51mins. A bit faster than yesterday. My knee twinged worryingly for the first km or so, then it settled down.

Interestingly, I dropped 0.7kg over the 24hr period. I’m not altering my eating – going on a diet as such – other than abstaining from added salt and sugar. We’ll see if this is a continual thing.

Tomorrow is a travel day. I’m either going to have to get up early and do my walk before we leave, or do it at the end of the day.

Already though I’m noticing benefits. I feel my back getting stronger, and so too my core muscles. Given that I have two metal plates bolted into the lumbar region of my spine, holding two fractured vertebrae in place, back pain is an ongoing issue for me.

It has been since 1976 when I was a passenger in a film vehicle that crashed into a telegraph pole, putting me in the Spinal Unit of Royal North Shore Hospital for nearly three months. It was touch and go whether I’d be a quadraplegic.

That’s a whole other story.

For now, I’m Day#2 of my November Challenge, and enjoying it!

My November Challenge has started!

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Today, being the 1st of November here in Australia, I started my November Challenge.

My November Challenge is walking a minimum of 45 minutes every day of the month, and abstaining from salt and sugar for the entire month.

It’s going to be hard.

I have travel coming up this month – fortunately only internal domestic travel – but even so that makes exercise difficult. And I notice that some of you have suggested that I take the occasional rest day.

Nup.

One of the difficulties I will face is my knee. Those of you who have read my Camino memoir, The Way, My Way, or seen the movie, know that I have a bung knee. Basically, my knee joint lacks cartilage. Or to use the vernacular, it’s bone-on-bone.

I refuse to get a knee replacement. And so my knee continues to be an issue. I’ve developed a way of walking that minimises the pain, and yet it’s still bothersome. And sometimes it’s downright agony. So I’ll see how that plays out over the month.

But this morning, first day of the Challenge, I felt great. It was a beautiful fresh Spring morning and I walked for 54 minutes – 4kms – so it wasn’t too demanding. In Mudgee people I meet on my walk want to chat, so I stop and chat, and that messes with my stats somewhat – but this isn’t about pushing myself. This is about consistency.

By the way, Nordic walking is the best!

My November Challenge ~

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November is going to be a challenging month for a lot of us, I believe.

The US elections and its aftermath are going to dominate world attention for a period, and yes I’m sure the outcome, whichever way it goes, will be challenging for some.

My November challenge is something else.

It’s been 6 ½ years since I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and next year I have one of the most physically demanding periods of my life coming up.

There’s a chance that I might be shooting my Indian thriller, Those that Love, Those that Kill, in January and part of Feb in northern India. It will be a tough shoot.

Even if that doesn’t happen, come mid February Jennifer and I embark on a gruelling Q&A tour of the US, doing 30 screenings of The Way, My Way right across the US in 35 days.

That’s a punishing schedule even for a young ‘un.
And I’m no longer a young ‘un!
Hence, my November challenge.

I need to get fit for the year coming up. Already I’ve been ramping up my exercise routine, but I need to do more. Plus, I have two addictions that I have to tame: Salt & Sugar.

I put excessive salt on everything. Crazy, right? But that’s the nature of addiction. Plus I am addicted to chocolate of an evening.

Both have to stop.
I need to break the craving, and the only way I can do that is to take the nuclear option.

So here is my November Challenge:

  1. I’ll walk at least 45 minutes a day, every day. If I can’t walk for whatever reason, I’ll do 45 minutes on an indoor bike. But every day for the month of November I’ll walk or bike a minimum of 45mins.
  2. I’ll cut salt from my diet completely. By that, I mean I won’t add salt to a meal.
  3. I’ll cut sugar from my diet completely. No chocolate, no desserts, no cakes or sweets. No lemon and chocolate gelato ice creams, which I love.

There’s no doubt that #3, cutting sugar, will be the hardest.

And you might think that walking 45 minutes a day for a Camino walker is no big deal. But you have to understand that my Parkinson’s disease has severely limited my ability to walk long distances. It’s taken me quite some time to even do 45 minutes at a reasonable clip.

So to do it every day for a month is going to be challenging. But I’ll be using my Nordic walking poles, and that helps enormously.

I’ll do a weekly audit on this blog. I’ll detail what I’ve done the previous week.
If I falter, I’ll tell you.

This is going to be tough.
But tomorrow it starts!

Why don’t you do your own version of a November Challenge too, and we’ll do it together?

The Way, My Way – International Cinema rollout ~

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It’s taken a little while, but we’ve finally found the right distributors to handle our film, The Way, My Way in several key territories, including the US and Canada.

We’ll make a formal announcement in the trades in the very near future, but we can say that the movie is coming to North America in the early Spring, 2025. It will play the top 50 markets in the US, and we expect it to expand to 500+ screens. Perhaps more if it kicks in, like it did in Australia.

In Australia and New Zealand we ended up on about 320 screens, and the movie played for 20 weeks in cinemas. It made close to $2.5m in ANZ, just from theatrical box office.

Jennifer and I will be attending preview Q&A screenings in the US, and we’ll be accompanied by Johnnie Walker for quite a few of those screenings, along with Leigh Brennan. She’ll act as MC for some of the screenings.

In April the movie opens wide in cinemas across Germany. Jennifer and I once again will be supporting the film with Q&A screenings, alongside our Executive Producer based in Munich, Rudi Wiesmeier.

In September the film will open wide in cinemas across Italy. Ivan the Terrible and His Beautiful Wife Giovanna will be promoting the film in their home territory.

We’re currently in discussions with other distributors in other territories, and there’ll be more announcements shortly.

Thank you all for your patience. It’s taken a little while for our Foreign Sales Agent, Simon Crowe in London, alongside our other EP Marc Wooldridge (consulting on foreign) to find absolutely the right distributors to handle the film. For instance, the Italian distributors have walked the Camino several times. They get the movie.

This is a film that needs nurturing. But handled with care and attention, as Marc proved in Australia through his company Maslow Entertainment, The Way, My Way can find a sizeable and highly engaged audience. Many saw the movie multiple times.

So, in a few months, America, here we come!
The rest of the world to follow!

Time to reflect ~

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I have a little time at the moment to reflect- on this past eighteen months with the making and initial distribution of The Way, My Way – but also time to reflect on larger matters.

Last week we finished our cinema run in Australia of The Way, My Way. It ran for 20 weeks in Australia, and it’s still screening in New Zealand. A 20 week theatrical run for a movie in this day and age is remarkable.

The film now begins its life online – it’s available on all the major platforms in Australia and NZ – and those that missed seeing it in the cinema will have the chance to see it at home.

Early next year we begin the global rollout- first the US, then Europe following shortly after. Again, Jennifer and I will support the US release with Q&As, and once again we’ll be joined by Johnnie Walker who’ll travel with us across the States, attending select screenings.

Looking forward to that!

To say that the response to the film has exceeded our expectations is a massive understatement. Before the Australian premiere, I would have been delighted with a 3-4 week run. Totally delighted. For it to run 20 weeks is still something I find quite mind-blowing.

Whether audiences overseas will take to the movie with such eagerness is yet to be determined. We’ll see. Again, I have low expectations. All I hope is that like in Australia, the Camino community will see it as truly authentic to the Camino spirit.

Whilst I have some down time, I’m keeping busy.

Jennifer and I are waiting for the finance to fall into place on a large budget thriller set in India that we’ve been working on for some time with Australian based producer Anupam Sharma. It’s called Those that Love, Those that Kill, and it’s based on a true story of a double honour killing. Hopefully that will have us shooting in India in the New Year.

I have the film on Hope still to finish, which will be the third film in my Journey series, the first two being PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System, and Facing Fear. We’re halfway through shooting Hope, but it will have to wait till I have more time.

So I’m using my time to write. I’m finishing off a novel called Dead Image, which Penguin Random House is tracking. They published my supernatural thriller trilogy Palace of Fires.

I’ve also started a new book – non-fiction – called If I can Change, You can Too. It’s a factual account of the massive changes I’ve gone through over the past ten years, and it gives pointers to how you can change too. Should you wish to…

I’ve yet to wrap my head around the book associated with my film Facing Fear. I need to do it, because the companion book to my film PGS Intuition has been selling quite well. But once again, I need to find a three month block of uninterrupted time when I can focus on it.

In a few months though I’ll have another book hitting the bookshops. It’s called Posts from a blog that became a book that became a film – The Way, My Way. It’s a compilation book of all the posts I wrote before, during and after my first Camino, plus posts from the Portuguese Camino I did the following year. All up, 120 posts, including photos.

It’s been a big job pulling that all together.

And then there’s the sequel to The Way, My Way, which Jennifer and I will swing into after the Indian movie, which we’ll be commencing in September next year, 2025. And after that there’s the alien film which I’ve been developing for many years, called They’re Here! It’s a comedy set in a small remote outback town.

I’m busier now than I’ve ever been. I feel as though finally, I’ve reached a stage where I have a level of craft competency coupled with a honed story-sense that enables me to work efficiently and at a high level.

Whether what I work on will be successful is in the lap of the Gods, but I’ll let you in on a little secret – Jennifer and I are having the best time!

I deserve nothing ~~~

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I’ve had some success lately.

It doesn’t happen often.

But on those few occasions when it has happened, invariably I’m surprised, and grateful. Grateful because I’ve tasted failure many times. And so my reaction to success is now the same as my reaction to failure:

So what…

Success doesn’t mean anything, nor does failure. They’re flip sides of the same coin.

You need to fail to achieve success. In many ways failure is a prerequisite for success. My experience is that to succeed, you need to step outside the box, to stand uncomfortable, to risk humiliation. To be prepared to be crushed.

I’ve been crushed many times. It’s not pleasant, let me tell you. But to achieve anything in this life you have to get back up, spit the blood from your mouth, and go back to work again.

My success is this recent film I’ve made.

For me, the success the film has achieved isn’t its box office or the acclaim it’s received, it’s that people have gone to the cinema and come away feeling good. Feeling inspired. Feeling empowered.

That to me is success.

Some kind people have said I deserve this success.

They’ve seen me struggle. They’ve seen me hurt. They’re seen how hard I’ve worked, for so many years, without any apparent benefit.

They say I deserve all these good things now and I say thank you, but silently I say no I don’t. I don’t deserve anything. The world, the Universe, doesn’t owe me anything.

No matter how hard I’ve worked, what risks I’ve taken, I’m not entitled to success.

Just as I’m not entitled to failure.

I’m very suspicious of this word deserve.

The word lacks humility. It lacks grace. It speaks to me of ego-based entitlement. Of expectation. Of sought-for outcomes. That’s a space I don’t wish to inhabit.

I don’t deserve anything.

Is success preferable to failure? To answer that I have to ask myself: What is success?

For me, it’s that I finished the film and it’s the film I wished to make. How fortunate am I?