A few weeks ago, on a warm April evening, I was sitting on the porch with a good friend of mine. He began telling me about how the next few years of his life will look. ” …I have to buy a ring, pay for the wedding, possibly move out of our apartment, maybe even a new car…”
He was audibly excited, but understandably intimidated. His life is about to change drastically, and this can be frightening for anyone (even if all of the change is positive) .
In between his words, I could sense something. I could feel his uncertainty, the timorousness was audible.
I stopped him and said, “You know when we think about our futures, we do a really good job of evaluating the risks, we do a good job of identifying the tasks/events we have never experienced, we do a good job at labeling what will be most stressful, but we do a really poor job at accounting for our own development through the process.”
The lesson learned
When we are trying to “clean up our health,” we typically have some sort of picture in our mind’s eye that we are chasing. We imagine what we will look like, feel like, act like, etc. We build out a quixotic picture of our hoped-for future as motivation to live towards it.
What often happens is we look at the difference between our current selves and the future self we want and say, “Well, there is no way in hell I can handle doing all of the things it will take to change.”
You’re absolutely right, but not for the reason you think.
We account for everything we have to change; our diet, our sleep habits, our daily schedule to accommodate moving our body more, but we do not account for our own development in the process of pursuing those things. The truth is, we change slowly over time, but we do change. There is a reciprocal relationship between behavior and identity, a dance that takes place (they both change, slowly, together).
You are never not engaging both aspects of yourself, which means your body and mind are always learning. This also means that when you engage in new behavior towards a goal your character is being changed (slowly over time).
It can be overwhelming thinking about everything you will need to change in order to change your life to the degree of which you want. The good news is that you don’t have to; all you need to do is match your actions with your current ability to sustain effort. (This is matching effort with developmental capability.)
When you do this, you are doing 2 things:
• Being honest with yourself, and
• Giving yourself grace to (character)change as a person before taking more(behavior) change on.
Questions for reflection:
1. Am I trying to change too much at once?
2. What are ways I have successfully changed a part of my life?
3. What are ways I have been unsuccessful at changing a part of my life?
4. What is something I am confident in now, but wasn’t intially?
5. What kind of person do I want to become in five years?
Conclusion
When we project what our future self will be like, our often knee jerk reaction is to be intimated by “all the effort and resources it will take.” While this is important, we also need to be encouraged at how much better we can get. Do not discount your own ability to develop and change. In other words, what feels hard now might be easy later. What feels stressful now, might feel like a part of your day in a year.
Don’t ponder all of the ways you want things to be different, begin with whatever you are able to be consistent at: Just start.
Lee Ramsey has a passion for fitness as a way to help people grow and change into more adaptable, capable and resilient versions of themselves. He is owner of Sanctify Fitness in Covington and a regular fitness columnist for the NKyTribune.