This is my mantra to myself for perpetuating bad habits that I know I should break, and that I actually want to break, but struggle to make the commitment to change.
I’ve learned that commitment is what change is really all about. Commitment and baby steps. The combination of those two things can break down any massive change into a long journey of incremental steps that, over time, begin to feel more natural and less disruptive. We all know that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
But what I’m talking about here is the lack of that commitment. This is the phase before you really put your foot down, when you can envision the changes you want and you can say out loud that you desire them to take place, but you’re still really fighting with the idea of putting in the work to get there.
Sometimes I feel like I live in this place.
It’s the moments like when I eat the dessert, or I press snooze on the alarm 10 times, or I stay up extra late watching Netflix and drinking a bottle of wine instead of going to bed early to wake up early, or I write the same damn item on my to-do list for months on end. Just because no one sees me doing these things (except me and my Maker and however many angels in heaven I have looking down on me, which I hope is a lot), doesn’t mean that I am getting away with it! And just because these actions in and of themselves are harmless in the universe at large, it doesn’t mean that they don’t harm me. They get me nowhere near where I want to go. And ultimately, I believe that happiness in this life—i.e., the absence of suffering, can only be achieved through two things, preferably in concert: loving others and acting out what you believe to be your own unique raison d’etre. (I am not saying it’s possible to completely escape suffering, nor do I think that is something we should desire anyway. Suffering is a healthy part of life. But let’s let the suffering come from things that we cannot control, not the things that we can.)
Of course, finding your purpose in this life is a challenge and a topic for another great discussion. But if you have even an inkling of an image in your head of “future you” or “ideal you”—you know, the one that, if you died tomorrow, you would be satisfied with as a lasting image for your life, simply because that person did the things it did or was the person it was—then move toward that, not away from it. When you take steps in the opposite or even sideways direction of where you want to go, even if no one sees you, or if it feels good in the moment, just remind yourself that you’re not actually getting away with anything. Good things—things better than you are experiencing now—are actually being taken away.
What is actually getting away with something is moving steadily closer and closer to your goals, one baby step at a time. If you can see your target in the distance, and you keep moving close and closer to it…one day you will meet it face to face. And just think of what you could really get away with then!
I am writing this now with the knowledge that I am, in some places in my life, stepping in the wrong direction. But in other places, I have taken timid steps in the right direction, and the fruit of my hard work is abundant. I wish that for all parts of my life, but I am just as weak and human as most. I write this as a reminder to myself to keep trying, to see the value in the hard work and little victories, and most of all, to never stop believing that change is possible. It is simply a re-direct of energy.