I’ve been completely blocked lately. No direction, no momentum, just sitting on ideas without making a single move. To be honest, I haven’t been taking my own advice
That has been me of late with the blog and pod.
Just haven’t been able to think of something worthwhile to give you all.
And so it has been sporadic and not out on time each week.
I have just been sitting on it, thinking, and planning. All classic procrastination techniques.
A question of the day at the box recently prompted me. I don’t have a ‘thing’ I do for myself. I used to read a lot, I would do extra workouts, test different things in the gym. But I have fallen into my caretaker mode again, looking after everyone else.
So I got to writing again, I have started to do a morning brain dump/meditation, and a night time review (I actually haven’t missed this night time one since I started it in 2018).
I need to do this because another question of the day was what you might recommend to people, and that one for me was, force it in.
If you want to make change, if you want to make a change stick, then it isn’t a matter of hoping to make change, of thinking, yep I want to be better and presto! You are! It is a matter of forcing it in to start with. I am not saying just at all costs make the change! I am saying you need to ruthlessly prioritise the things in your calendar that you want to change.
Now the thing about forcing it in is that you don’t have to for long before the good habit sticks.
Any change we make, even positive, is difficult at first. It is unknown what the outcomes will be, it is unfamiliar and feels very foreign initially. And it will feel like this for at least a few weeks to even months before it becomes second nature.
We can feel vulnerable at this time. Early in the change. But that is part of it.
I think of the analogy of a lobster shedding its shell. For the lobster to grow it has to get uncomfortable in its shell, it then has to split it open and push out of it, and then once that initial change is made it has a soft shell that leaves it very vulnerable at that time.
If the lobster didn’t push through that discomfort and keep going it would just sit still, not grow, or even end up being eaten.
As people we aren’t all that different in that we need to experience some discomfort before we can grow, and then we need to be a bit vulnerable as well in that growth period. That is where we need to lean on someone or something.
The part you need to get through and really force the change in is just after that initial start point. When you are new at it, you are vulnerable to yourself and your own limiting beliefs. That is the point you have to force things into your calendar, into your life so that you might experience the amazing growth that comes with change.
Nothing good comes easily is an old cliche that is a cliche because it is so often the case. When you work for something, when you go through that period of adjustment, that awkward difficult stage, that is the hard bit. Once through that you are on your way.
My main point today is that yes things will seem hard, awkward, or you may even feel silly because you aren’t sure about exercise, meal plans, sleep patterns, meditating etc, but that is never a reason to give up on something that will have a net benefit in your life.
The easy choice is to give it all up, to just say, ah I will try later, and go back to what you were doing before. But where did that get you? You made the decision to change from that, yet at the time that it gets a little tough or awkward you want to go back to that?
Can you see how that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense?
So you have to force it in.
Force it into your calendar, into your routine, into you to make it a habit that you never want to give up.
If you are having trouble forcing it in, please reach out to me and I will help you. I have been doing it in my life for a long time now, and have been helping so many other people force the good things into their lives too.
So what do you want to change in your life today?