How many times have I decided to finally “do something” or make some change that I desire in my life, yet hardly actually change my actions at all?
The number is embarrassing, confounding even. I have recognized that those decisive moments are usually made in moments of pain, when I am feeling the suffering and the frustration of the consequences of not making the changes I desire. Like looking at myself naked in the morning, so unhappy with the muffin top spilling over my jeans, resolving to quit sugar for good. Like having a hard time concentrating at work and taking twice as long to do what I need to do because my head is foggy from drinking wine last night. Won’t do that ever again. 😉 Like telling my son that I still haven’t finished the photo album that he’s been asking me to make for him for 6 months, so he can get all of his memories straight surrounding his pre-divorce and post-divorce lives. In those moments, I resolve. I resolve to change, to do better, to put forth action that is in line with my goals.
But then come the moments that are not filled with pain, the moments where I forget about how bad it feels to not align my actions with my goals. The moments where I’m high on sex or sleep, or sugar or wine or exercise or good weather or whatever other lovely thing in this life is making me feel like I don’t need to try that hard. Like I need to take it easy and enjoy. It seems like the “try hards” and the “enjoy lifers” are in such different camps. Can’t we meet in the middle somewhere?
I see these self-help gurus who promote waking up at 4 a.m. every day, reigning in so much satisfaction from their 10-step morning routines, and who accomplish more before 9 a.m. than I do before 5:00 p.m. I want their drive. But when I’m lying in bed in the morning, and my alarm goes off before dawn, I feel like I’m being torn from one of my greatest daily purposes—letting my body rest and restore from all of the challenges of the day before, and I think: isn’t sleeping the most productive thing I can do now? Won’t this give me the strength I need to really rise up to the day’s challenges? I don’t know. I could sleep 12 hours every night, so I might have an extreme opinion here. Sleep is just such a beautiful thing to me. But what could I do with 10 extra hours during the work week if I just got up earlier? How beautiful could that be???
They say that points of change come when the pain of things not changing, or the pain of staying the same, finally outweighs the pain of progress. But truly, as humans, I think we have a very high tolerance for enduring pain that we know. We find our vices, we brace ourselves, we incorporate that struggle into our perceptions of ourselves…and we make it part of who we are. That becomes scary to let go.
I tend to be an “all or nothing” type of gal when it comes to making up my mind about something and going for it, so incremental change feels so lame to me. But “making up your mind” can sometimes take years. Or may never happen. One time I researched lots of different diet reviews to see if I could find anything they had in common, and I did. It was the people. The majority of success story videos started with someone saying “I made up my mind” or “I decided” or “I COMMITTED.” And that’s what makes it work. Doesn’t really matter what diet you choose; just matters that you put your foot down and actually take the next step forward. But what if you’re not there? Not ready to put your foot down. Then I do believe that making small changes adds up to big ones. I hate this approach. You don’t get the satisfaction of seeing results quickly; your tough little baby steps feel meaningless…but you actually do get somewhere eventually. I have tried this approach with things that I wanted to change, but that I wasn’t quite ready yet to make the big commitment and go all in. And 6 months later, when I look back and think to where I was back when, I feel good. And that’s mainly because the baby changes actually stuck. In that slow-motion time approach, they don’t feel like changes; they feel like me doing what I want. And the 6-months-ago version of myself seems strange and not like me anymore. That’s where you want to be post-change. Like you’ve found a version of yourself that resonates with you more. That’s a true escape from the pain of staying the same.