The Story We Tell Ourselves
Tell me if this sounds familiar to you.
You want to improve yourself. You’ve either come to a realization (or many) and/or went through some experience to lead up to it. Either way, you decide to finally get your act together. You decide that now is the time to create the new you and finally make more than a few changes.
Next, you jot down some changes and goals you’d like to see in your life:
- Fitness goals? Heck ya, let’s finally tack on some muscle and lose some weight.
- Lifestyle? Let’s get a job, or one even better than the one I have now. Or let’s get out of my comfort zone by moving to a new country or city, something I’ve always dreamed of.
- Health? I gotta start going zen and eating more of that green stuff.
Whatever you think of, at this step you identify your weak spots not just your goals. It may sting like hell but by bringing those uglies to light, you become more aware of what you need to work on.
Now, you come up with a plan to deal.
- “I’m going to wake up at 5 am everyday. Get a nice and sweaty work out in 5 times a week, and then eat a breakfast fit for champions. Throughout the day I’ll work full time on my work or side businesses non-stop until sunset. After, I’ll make some time for me/my family/friends and to top it all off I’ll go to bed at exactly 10 pm.”
Whatever perfect routine comes up, you tell yourself something along the lines of, “If I do/follow this” or “If I complete 1, 2, 3, for X amount of time then things will really happen for me!”
Now.
- Fast forward a couple weeks later. And you find yourself slipping back to your old routine…
- Waking up at 5 am was quickly given up after feeling sluggish and tired the whole day. A late wake up the next day tipped the scales back to your 10am wake up.
- The gym ended up being too out of the way for you to go 5 times a week. It was hard to rebound after going once and then later missing several days in a row. What’s the point in going at all if I miss some days?
- You also realize the convenience of ordering and making the same old food. It tastes better and it’s easy.
Most, if not ALL, of the things you planned end up not being done.
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What does this long-winded hypothetical story even mean??
While our beginning intentions are good, it’s easy to fall into consistency traps when we try to bite off more than we can chew early on in our new pursuits.
I mention this whole made-up scenario, because it hits close to home to me. I’ve had at times an all or nothing mentality when it comes to tackling new challenges and goals. Consistency continues to be a major issue of mine because I’m learning to balance the acts of life. Life is full of daily responsibilities that we individually need to fulfill every day. Some responsibilities are required of us, i.e hygiene, cooking, cleaning, work, paying the bills, me time etc. And there are additional ones like friends, family, hobbies that we desire to fit into the equation.
Balancing all of the aspects of your life that are meaningful to you, especially with incorporating new habits or goals, is difficult. Really difficult.
Balancing between what needs to be done and what you want to do is something you refine each and every day. It’s inevitable. That is, if you truly want to try to do/learn something new or improve yourself, then you need to incorporate balance and have faith in the side habit or goal you are pursuing.
Going down this road usually has a lot of uncertainty. Making changes that are new to us create those uneasy feelings. In the back of our mind we sometimes think, will this actually lead anywhere? Will handling all of these responsibilities actually improve my well-being and lifestyle?Especially when our new routine gets difficult or stagnant, we start questioning our capacity to fulfill the tasks at hand. As a result, the routine gets filled with wishy washy behavior and nothing but consistency issues.
- “I don’t see any gains from working out yet, should I stop? Will I ever get stronger?”
- “I’m not getting any job interviews, should I switch fields or play a safer route?”
- “Eh I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Self-doubt especially compounds when we attempt to try too many things at once. As a result, the “perfect” routine we had in mind inevitably falls apart.
So finally… How do we ease the uncertainty of when it comes to incorporating new habits/goals in our lives?
Brick-by-Brick
Focus on one habit or goal at a time.
For those like myself that want to improve multiple dimensions of themselves, stop thinking about the many and only think of the one.
By focusing on one particular task, we can develop something, rather than nothing.
The more that is on your plate, the more likely you’ll get discouraged when setbacks happen. When first starting out, one failure to accomplish a set of new tasks and responsibilities can have a cascading affect. If we can focus on one thing at a time, we can recover from setbacks much faster than if multiple occur.
Photocredit : iStockphoto.com
Recovering faster is the key phrase here because failure is inevitable along the way in our pursuits. Be be less overwhelmed with the many expectations we set out for ourselves by just focusing on one thing:
Focus on writing that book you’ve been putting off.
Focus on going to the gym consistently.
Focus on eating healthier.
Focus on getting a job.
Focus on taking care of yourself.
Just one damn thing!
Through time, we’ll be more comfortable with that one additional focus in our lives, that we’ll be able to incorporate others! Now, there isn’t going to be an exact moment where you finally say to yourself, “I’ve reached mastery in going to the gym, I should now incorporate reading to my routine!”. More than likely you’ll just start reading without giving it much thought since the routine of going to the gym has become second nature.
The goal here is to start not too big in our self-improvement and to build our habits one at a time. Brick-by-brick.
Like forging a slab of metal, goals take time and consistency to shape up and become something beautiful. Make it easier to shape yourself by first starting out with one new habit/goal.
By doing so, you can naturally improve the many dimensions of you life and build new ones. This will compound over time, which in turn creates a well-rounded house to live under.
Trust the process, be patient, and pick one damn goal to work on every day.
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Thanks for reading! My hope in writing these self-improvement articles is to help others as well as remind myself of a couple ideas along the way. I look forward to refining my writing and hopefully getting to know more writers!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: C D-X on Unsplash