Be fulfilled with what you do (and be happy with what you don’t do).
Be intentional with what you do.
Be consistent with what you do.
Because what you do will change you.
And when you change, you might just get everything you ever wanted.
And you might just become happy with what you have.
Rarely can you build a new habit without going through discomfort and resistance.
Choose to avoid the short-term pain… Or choose to focus on the long-term gain.
The more frequent and the less intrusive the habit, the easier it is to stick to.
Commit to writing for an hour once week? You’ll find a million reasons to procrastinate until the very last moment, on Sunday night, to write.
Commit to writing for 5 minutes once a day? The timeline is so short, there are no more excuses.
Make it doable. Make it frequent. And suddenly every habit is within reach.
I couldn’t imagine finding time for 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling a day – until I started writing them. 700 days later, I haven’t missed a day.
I couldn’t imagine finding time or energy to publish a daily blog post – until I started publishing them. 70 days later, I haven’t missed a day.
I couldn’t imagine finding time or willpower for 5 yoga sessions a week – until I started doing them. 2 years later, I can’t imagine not doing them anymore.
Sometimes it’s hard to see how you could have time or energy for something before you just start doing it. Then it becomes the new normal.
It’s your mind playing tricks on you.
Start doing (and start small). Keep doing. Then start believing.
When I’m inspired, I write.
When I’m over the moon, I write.
When I’m frustrated, I write.
When I’m sad, I write.
When I’m angry, I write.
When I’m so overwhelmed I don’t want to do anything at all, I write.
Because when the tides of life get rough, a consistent practice is your life raft.
Writing, running, yoga, music, walking, gardening, knitting, dancing, singing, surfing…
You not only build trust in such habits and practices to achieve lofty goals but also – even more so – to fall back on when the going gets tough, and you need a beacon of stability to keep you afloat.
One more word.
One more practice run.
One more yoga session.
One more moment of doing what’s important to you.
One more moment that brings you closer to who you choose to be.
Just one more.
Starting a new habit seems to come with three universal “self-trust issues”:
Trust in my Intentions. “Do I even have the time for this? Does making time for this make me selfish… Is it even good for me to spend time on this, out of all the priorities in life? Will this do me in any good in the long term?”
Trust in my Ability to follow through. “I’ll probably give up at the first opportunity, and then beat myself up again for not following through.”
Trust in my Skills. “Am I even good enough? I don’t notice any improvement, I don’t think this is working for me. I don’t think I can do this.”
(Source: Eben Pagan)
And even though I’ve slowly been gaining trust across all three dimensions in the past two years…
Whenever I start something new – like publishing a daily insight – the same trust issues resurface.
“Trust in my ability to follow through” is a particularly tough cookie. Not a day goes by without a self-defeating and endlessly annoying voice whispering in my ear: “Go ahead, try me. See how long you last before you return with another habit you gave up on…”
Which leads me to the Completion Paradox:
Trust in my ability to complete things is not a prerequisite to get started. It’s earned through getting started in the first place and then, slowly, but surely, day by day, following through. Completing something every single day. Proving to myself that I can, in fact, trust myself to follow through. Building up that self-trust every day through tiny trust builders.
So… the questions I keep in mind today:
Taking it one step further:
And with those questions in mind, I realize a simple thought can put my mind at ease…
“It’s all fine… I’ve been through this before.”
Because when my dreams start drowning in doubts
And desire turns into despair
When I suddenly see what I always had in me
Who I could be
Yet my thoughts already declare defeat
I step back
Look back
Feel back
And when at last I notice
That day by day,
I’m finally unleashing the calling I’ve always ignored
I remind myself
It’s all fine. I’ve been through this before.
