Change is Hard

At the beginning of October, I received an e-mail with the subject line: “Your Last 3 Months of 2022.” The e-mail was from Jeff Fajans, a creative performance consultant with whom I had worked in the past. I did not open it — not until yesterday — because the subject line alone sent me into a tailspin. Three months left in 2022? WTF? For the previous nine months, I had been chastising myself for not doing more, for ‘wasting’ time, for being unfocused. I knew I had to change, but sometimes change is hard. Still, was I going to spend the last three months of the year doing the same thing?

Facing Reality

Last week, I finally sat down at my desk and took time to look at everything that I want to do before the end of the year. In some cases, it is a matter of what I need to get started on. But to make any sort of real progress, I knew I needed more than a mental game plan. I had to write it down and face reality. I needed a plan to hold me to account … because change is hard.

I cannot tell you how uncomfortable writing out the plan made me. Seeing all the goals on paper — and the concrete actions I would need to take to achieve them — had me, once again, doubting myself and my worth. Could I really do it? Who do I think I am? At what point will I fail? The negative chatter was trying to hold me back before I even made it out of the gate. Because change is hard, and I was already looking for any excuse to let myself fail.

Don’t Overthink It, Just Do It

12-Week Year Monday, 31 October – Monday, 23 January 2023
Life Goal: Live Intentionally Supporting 12-Week Goal: Be Mindful, Stay Active and Live Healthy
Tactics	Due	Begin In	End In	Completed
No phone 1st hour after waking up	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
Limit TV/streaming	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
No games on phone	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
Walk home from work 3 times a week	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
Eliminate sugary treats/baked goods	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
Drink two bottles of water during work shift	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
Fast 16 hours after last meal of the day	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
Run 2 times a week	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12
Attend 1 workout class each week	Each wk	Week 1	Week 12

Sometimes there is a tendency to want to list every single task that needs to be done. That is when I know I am starting to overthink everything. What I am really doing is looking for another excuse to put things off. At some point, the Nike slogan always pops into my mind: Just Do It. Because the timing, the circumstances, my mood … none of those are ever going to be necessarily perfect or aligned. And even if I am a bit unsure of the way forward or if what I am doing is ‘right,’ I have found that getting started always creates momentum. It is the getting started, the doing, that lets me create my own motivation instead of waiting for motivation to come to me.

Change is Hard

In the example of my goal above, to Live Intentionally, some of the supporting actions may look easy. For me, ‘Eliminate sugary treats/baked good’ is difficult not just because I have a sweet tooth, but because I love to bake. To avoid reaching into the candy bowl at work, to skip the confectionary aisle in the grocery store, when I look longingly at the chocolate chips in the cupboard and think about whipping up a batch of homemade cookies — I have to remind myself of why that goal is important to me. Because I want to lose weight. Because I want to avoid diabetes, something my father and both of my grandmothers had to deal with. In that regard, every day for me is a battle but focusing on the end result helps me to stay the course.

Yes, change is hard. But if we can stick with the plan long enough, we begin to see the results and what a difference it makes. As Andy Warhol reminded us, “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”