Are those lovely stories in your head preventing you from actually moving towards creating them as reality?
You know the ones:
- Won’t it be great when…
- I’ll be so happy once…
- I can’t wait until…
Telling Stories
We get so caught up in the stories, we forget that we can bring them closer to fruition. The perfection of the future seems so far from the reality of the present that we continue doing what we have been doing, because we don’t feel capable of making the grand sweeping changes that would make that future story a reality.
And for the most part, we’re not capable of making, or at least sustaining those huge changes. All at once. Baby steps, inching along, it’s how you make it up a volcano and it’s how you make lasting life changes.
Right Here, Right Now
Where are you right now? Eating mostly fast food and freezer meals and suspecting that you feel pretty lethargic because of it? Okay. Where do you want to be? Eating all (or almost all) home cooked meals from whole ingredients? Okay.
Our usual inclination: Throw out all packaged foods and start fresh.
What we end up with: An empty pantry and a sense of panic.
Which causes us to: Go out and restock the pantry with packaged foods, and a combined sense of security and shame.
Or…
An Inching Along Option:
- Find three breakfasts that you would be happy making and eating. This takes as long as it takes.
- Buy the ingredients for one of them.
- Make that one.
- Make any adjustments you want/need to it.
- Repeat 2-4 for the other three breakfasts.
- Get into a routine with the breakfasts.
- Repeat for snacks, then lunches and finally suppers.
While you’re making a new routine for snacks maybe you replace your burger in a bag lunch with a healthier soup, one that comes in a box, but you know what each ingredient actually *is*.
Or maybe you start by spending some time each day noticing how you feel after you eat. Paying special attention to what foods make you feel better or worse.
Small is Feasible
A little bit each day. Or not even each day. A little bit at a time, whatever that time is for you.
Of course, this doesn’t just apply to food, or even physical health. It goes for any lasting change you want to make.
Where am I now?
Where do I want to be?
What’s my first, smallest step I can take in that direction?
Repeat.
For the rest of your life.
Because that’s what this is, *your* life. You get to create it on your terms.
What’s one change you’ve been considering? What’s the first small step you can take to get there?
And if you want some help in working through your Where am I/Where do I want to be questions, when you sign up for Inching Along, you get a free In Bud Session.Tags: baby steps, Beginning, comfort zone, Experiment, Learning Experience, patterns
