Patterns

"If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results."

--Jack Dixon 

 "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." --Aristotle

     I’ve learned a lot about myself during the time between now and my last blog posting. Though my intentions have been good in trying to change the way I approach maintaining various aspects of my life, I’ve since learned that my focus has needed to shift away from the results and towards the process itself. Doing this has brought a renewed energy and motivation to my life. I’ve been working on things that I’d been trying to work on for many years and feeling continuous inspiration within the process.

     So, what am I now doing differently? Well, first of all, I’m only writing today because I’ve felt inspired to do so. Rather than force results on myself (e.g. “I must make sure I have a blog posting every month--no matter what”), I’m paying attention to my life and looking for specific moments of value that I believe will help others learn, and this is what I understand the purpose of my blog was to be all along. I had been primarily concerned that if I didn’t have a certain number of regular postings, that I was somehow not to be taken seriously. The problem with this perspective is that I believe it encourages people to write something--anything--everyday, whether it contains much forethought or not (such as a personal journal or diary). It’s great that some folks are truly capable of producing well thought out blog entries on a daily basis; however, I know my boundaries well, and writing only when I’m inspired to do so is one of them. Priorities shift quite often for me, depending on what’s taking place in my life at the time, and I find that going with the flow rather than against it makes far more sense. This has brought some well-needed peace and relief to my consciousness.

     I’m finding that when I focus on changing long-standing patterns of belief and behavior in myself, I must look at the process first and the results will certainly follow. I used to look at days and weeks going by and criticize myself every time something wasn’t accomplished by the end of a day, weekend, month, etc. My self-talk was quite bullying and mean, as I was basing my self-worth on what I could get done. When I didn’t have the motivation to move forward with a task in the time I set for myself, my inner bully kicked in calling me “lazy” and making me feel even less motivated to do anything. It became a repetitive downward spiral, as negative thoughts tend to perpetuate negative thoughts. I was becoming trapped in my usual pattern that left nothing done and me feeling like a failure--again.

     What’s changed lately is that I now look at what I want (yes, a result--as that’s usually the goal in the first place), but I remind myself that I don’t have to do anything to work toward it, I want to do things to work toward it. I learned the “have to vs. want to” perspective in the Career Development course I teach at work.
 

     To illustrate: If a person wants to reach the goal of, for instance, graduating from a program (such as the ones we have at the school where I work), this person (now a student) might approach each class with self-talk that consistently says, “I have to get up and get ready for school”, “I have to take notes for this class”, “I have to get my homework done”. This is a common perspective, and one that many of us don’t think twice about. The trouble is that it has a tendency to be demotivating and energy draining. If said student looks at school not as a “have to” but a “want to”, then his or her perspective is more likely to brighten and energy seems to flow back towards motivating the student to move forward. Tasks that might have seemed tiresome before may now appear less so once the student begins thinking: “I want to get up and get ready for school”, “I want to take notes for this class”, “I want to get my homework done”. This psychological shift takes away the seemingly coercive aspect of “have to” and replaces it with choice: “Do I want to do this or not?” Sure, the student might still end up doing things he or she doesn’t necessarily want to do in the moment, but the choice always remains, and no one is forcing anyone to do anything. In addition, if the student were to choose not to do something, that’s fine, just as long as he or she accepts the consequences of his or her actions.

      I have the choice to do whatever it is I want to do as long as I accept the consequences of my actions. For example, I used to eat--even when I wasn’t hungry--because I enjoyed the feeling I got when I ate something particularly decadent (still do). When I found my clothes getting tighter, I didn’t like that consequence and no longer wanted to accept it. Now, I exercise everyday and watch what I eat, when I eat it, and why I eat it. Do I want to do this everyday? Not always, but if I choose not to do this anymore, I know I don’t want the consequences that may follow from that choice. So I refuse to whine and complain about it and I just do it--because I want my clothing to fit comfortably and I want to feel better physically and mentally. I don’t have to, I want to.

      It’s far too easy to fall into the same negative patterns and downward spirals over and over again, but it takes consistent desire and motivation to become aware of these dysfunctional patterns and step out of them. I’m a work in progress, as I always have been, and I’m grateful for the lessons I continue to learn and continue to share with others. Thank you for reading.