Maintained Change = Time + Effort + Consistency … Forever
The biggest surprise I get from clients is when they hear that they need to keep working at what they are working at. Focus. Time. Energy. Consistency. Forever. ONLY IF you want the change to last.
Over time, your new habits become easier to repeat. Over time you build momentum so it is easier to keep going. However, you can never stop, (well, unless you are done.)
This is why so many people are disappointed when their results won’t stay, they come and go, simply because the effort starts and stops.
Simply by looking at the results in your life, you can see where your effort and focus is.
If you are in great shape, you focus your time on your food, exercise, and sleep. You probably study about what types of foods you should eat, exercise strategies, the benefits of different nutrients and supplements. If you want to maintain this, you do this for the rest of your life.
If you are amazing at your job, you probably work hard, ask questions, and keep trying to learn about the business and what else you can do to make it better, more efficient, more profitable.
You probably read about what you don’t know, observe those who are doing things differently, try things out, measure the results and try something else. Rinse and repeat.
The reason most people get the yo-yo results in their lives, in their careers or why they just quit trying is:
- There is a belief they will be happier with something else than what they have now.
- They try and change too much too soon and can’t maintain it.
- There is this idea that they only need to do things for a short period of time and then can go back to their old ways, expecting a different result.
Then when things don’t work out the way we want them to, we beat ourselves up, blame ourselves for failing again, and tell ourselves how we are not good enough.
“I suck.” “I can’t do anything.” I didn’t try hard enough.” “I’m never going to be able to do that.”
I don’t want you to beat yourself up. If it worked, then I would say go ahead. But it doesn’t work. Where we need to start is by getting really honest with ourselves. I mean the kind of honesty that you may not want to share with people. When we are honest with ourselves, we can see how we have been practicing hard for what we currently have in our lives. We have been practicing these beliefs and thoughts in our lives for a very long time. Where you are today, your result has taken focus, time, energy, consistency and you have been working on it until now.
This does not mean that we have to like everything that we have. We can definitely decide we want to change things. Sometimes, being very honest with ourselves, we find out that we don’t want to change.
What am I talking about? Here is an example that is near and dear to me. I, myself have an interesting relationship with bread. I believe that I LOVE bread. I love sandwiches. That bread is soooo good. In reality, bread actually makes me bloated and sluggish. I feel gross after I eat it. I want to quit eating bread, but, I don’t really want to quit eating bread. If I was honest, I want to want the effect of not eating bread without having to quit doing it.
Now, I could just get mad at myself every time I eat bread, and lecture myself and berate myself. OR I can just be honest that I am learning to want to not want bread. This way I don’t have to feel so horrible about myself when I am doing something I am telling myself I don’t want to do. Then I can breathe. Then I don’t need to hate myself. I can start to trust myself and I can allow myself to be really curious about why I still want to eat bread.
This process of honesty gives space for you to be curious about yourself instead of being judgmental. I could try and hate myself until I quit eating bread, but there is no point. The point is creating a relationship with yourself that you trust and value.
The other point is giving yourself the opportunity to decide what you want to do with your time and energy. You can’t do everything all at once, even though there are probably a lot of things you want to do. So instead of hating yourself because you aren’t getting the results you want yet, remind yourself that you aren’t working on that yet. It feels so much better, and when you decide to put the energy into accomplishing something, you probably don’t want the result to be temporary.
Remember, the path from here to there is paved with thousands of small steps. Only look at the destination and you might not even take the first step. But, each small step seems easy because we have been walking for years.
by Angela Wigand, CPA
CEO & Life Coach
Inspiring One Woman at a Time
MindLogix Inc., www.mindlogix.ca
