Sometimes I wonder how many of us get so close to completely changing our entire lives, but then give up at the absolute last second.
I don’t think anyone would have accurate stats on this, but I bet it’s a sickeningly high percentage of us.
Why?
Because things usually get the hardest that they’ll ever get, right before we make major breakthroughs and start making serious progress.
When we make changes and start learning new skills, there’s a process of change that we have to go through before we can come out the other side.
This process normally resembles something like:
- Take action
- Ride a wave of motivation
- Start getting a bit frustrated when the wave of motivation dies off
- Have to battle with ourselves every day to carry on taking action despite seeing no results
- Miss some days here and there
- Beat ourselves up a bit and then re-commit to taking action every day
- Find it very hard to keep going
- Feel like we’re making no progress
- Start losing the battle with ourselves inside our own head
- Eventually give up and go onto something else
We’ve all been there right? Sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it.
But what’s such a shame, is how close we really are to going “over the top of the hill” and then free-rolling down the other side.
Most of the internal battle that’s happening within us, is due to our self-image kicking up a fuss as we start to build new habits that go against “who we are” and “what we’ve always done”.
Our self-image struggles the most right before we change
The closer we get to cementing our new habits in place, the louder our self-image shouts at us and the harder it makes things… Until the moment that we break through and win the battle against ourselves.
Our self-image is what controls that little voice in our heads, and is also what controls our feelings when we do stuff.
When we brush our teeth, our self-image is comfortable with that. We’ve always done it, it’s totally normal, so we feel very little resistance against doing it.
But if we don’t work out and we think about starting a workout every morning, our self-image can go berserk. We’ll feel dread, fear, anxiety, lethargy, and the little voice in our heads will tell us all the reasons that we don’t want to do it.
And we might stick at it for a few weeks, but the point where most of us give up, is right before the point where we set the new habit in stone.
And what happens when we set the new habit in stone? It becomes “who we are now”, and as we transition into this new behavior pattern, our self-image starts to become more comfortable with the idea.
So we don’t feel fear anymore, we don’t have to fight the voice in our heads, instead we just do it.
So the thing to keep in mind is that the LOUDER that voice in your head is shouting at you to stop, and the MORE INTENSE the feelings of not wanting to do it are… The closer we are to breaking through into the other side.
This is a sign that we’re getting close. This is a sign to not give up. We’re about to go over the top of that hill, so no matter how hard it is, we’ve almost reached the daylight.
“The night is always darkest before the dawn”. And yes, I did just throw in a quote from Batman.
Speak soon,
Dan
Dan Holloway - Founder of Scrap the 9 to 5 Ltd
SFM Elite & DEA Black Member of the SFM/DEA
Nice article. I totally agree it’s right when things are the toughest that we need to stay focused and keep pushing through. Good quote but pretty sure it was originated c. 1650, slightly before Batman 😉 I like your videos, keep doing them.
Thanks very much Steve, really appreciate the feedback 🙂 Haha yea fair point, Harvey Dent was just jumping on the bandwagon wasn’t he.