OK, now it is February and January is long gone. So how are you doing with those changes you told yourself you would work on this year? I don’t mean resolutions, I mean real change. Here’s the thing, when we go about deciding that we want and or need to make a change we have a couple of options. The general thing that most of us do is to say: OK…that’s it ….I’m going to do ______________! You start out doing your thing and pretty soon, life and work gets in the way of the “thing” and you gradually drop off of the direction of your change. That’s fairly typical.
Next it seems like providence there is a seminar, training, or new book which comes out on the exact topic of what we are looking to change, so we jump on the band wagon and purchase or go to the training. Again, we start off with the best of intentions, but once again here comes life over here, and this over there at work and so on and we are soon off our target. Not to be dis-swayed we again try yet again when our lives are more calm and not so much drama going on. Am I right? I know. I am just like you.
For many, many years that somehow turned into decades this was my biggest stumbling block. There was always something that threw me off course. So for me another thing just happened to come along some time ago. And it worked. Why do you think this one particular thing worked and none of the hundreds of other things I had tried did not work?
Well, over the years what I have noticed is that with time we start to accumulate a certain degree of knowledge and that we can intuitively tell when something just isn’t going to work. The problem comes in that we are so desperate for something, that we will buy anything and indeed everything in order to get “relief”! If you think back over time when some small thing did work, what was present in your life at the time? You probably didn’t even notice that there was a difference in you, the times, where you were in life, what the environment was, when and where you were first exposed to the “answer” that was right for you, at the right moment in your life and that most important, you were ready and able to embrace it and take it in and digest it and incorporate the answer into your life.
Let me give you an example you will identify with. We have all been on a weight loss program at some time in our lives. We get all the materials, we chart, we buy the right foods, we read, we get support and then there is that one moment of temptation and we start our old self sabotaging thought of: “….I will just take a small bite , and then I will be satisfied….” But, what happens, the truth is one small bite does not satisfy, right? I do not know the science or chemistry behind that action, but what I do know is that when you have a craving (with food or whatever it is that you are trying to change) we must exercise our “resistance muscle” and in turn we are strengthening our resolve, our ability to tolerate the “uncomfortableness” which we must go through in order to get “there” (in other words your GOAL of change.).
You might even try some mighty self talk: “I know I can tolerate this distraction, interruption or whatever it is, and it does go away. It is great that I can get through this rough patch, right now. I will keep my eye on the big picture, and not this annoying distraction.” It is when we feel like we are missing out and deprived in some way that we falter and fall out of the program. Choose to stay on the course because the end is so much better than straying in the moment.
