“It does not matter how slowly you go, only that you don’t stop.” – Confucius
When I made the decision to get healthy and implement some positive changes in my life, my coach Traver Boehm gave me what ended up being some of the best advice I’ve ever been given.
“Reject everything that is familiar to you.”
Shortly before calling my wife to give her the bad news, he clarified what this meant.
Familiarity is the twin of routine and if you’re looking to make substantive changes in your life, your routine isn’t working for you. Your routine is in fact your resistance to change. In his books, Steven Pressfield talks about capital “r” Resistance because it is that significant an obstruction to achieving your goals. To Pressfield, Resistance is as much a part of you and me as our heart, lungs, toenails and emotions.
When you’ve developed a routine – something you do day in and day out – it becomes familiar. Not only are the actions familiar but so too are the emotions the routine creates, the energy it uses, and the thoughts it generates that bounce around in our heads. Plus, routines and familiarity require almost zero active thought or intention.
If you are looking to change your life, then you are going to have to put forth A LOT of active thought and intention.
That’s just the way it is. In fact, I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks for people – and especially for me – has been the need to reject familiarity.
So, what was familiar to me? What routines did I have that needed to be avoided with intention and deliberate thought?
Beer.
That’s one. But for a homebrewer who can talk about hop varietals like a wine snob talks about the superiority of Pinot Noir, that’s a tough one. So much comes with that routine.
Coming home at the end of the day from a shift, after peeling off that sopping wet vest and t-shirt, and plopping down with a cold one was a familiar reward for making it through the day. Plus, it helped me relax and transition from the role of cop to dad. It gave me a few minutes of what passes for quiet time in a house with two young kids. After making decisions all day, some that changed people’s lives and put others in peril, it was a decision that was there to reward my work.
It was a reward that was loaded with unintended or subconscious meaning and it was completely at odds with the other goals in my life. I wasn’t passing out with the lampshade on my head or anything, not even close. But repetition of an admittedly negative reward has drawbacks. I don’t drink soda because of the sugar and corrosive effects. I’d never have 2 or 3 Coke’s a day. I know that’s bad for me. But how is beer better? It’s actually worse! I wasn’t in alignment.
It had to go. Maybe not beer as a whole but the automatic response every day and certainly my level of familiarity with it. When I took a step back to evaluate, I looked like a lab rat slurping at the water dispenser every time a bell rang. My Pavlovian response to 5pm was found on the top shelf of the fridge.
There are other routines of familiarity you’ll need to parse out:
- Fast food
- Late night snacking
- Mundane and ineffective exercise routines
- Sleeping in
- Staying up late
- Poor meal planning
- Excessive television
But there are other things familiar to us that are much scarier: our thoughts and feelings. If you’re looking to make real change then you also need to reject the thoughts and feelings that got you to the place where you are now. They’re obviously not helping, so let’s get rid of them and replace them with new ones.
What are some of the familiar thoughts you need to reject?
- “I’m not an athlete.”
- “I don’t want to get bulky.”
- “I don’t have the willpower to change.”
- “I’m already too far out of shape to try.”
- “My wife/husband/significant other doesn’t support me.”
Nope. Get rid of those. Instead:
- “I am a professional athlete with life and death challenges in my game.”
- “I will have the body and mind that I choose.”
- “I will make small changes daily that lead to big results.”
- “My only goal is to be better than yesterday.”
- “My wife/husband/significant other wants me to be happy, and right now I’m not happy.”
There’s a million of these negative thoughts running around in your head. I know because they’re still in my head too. I expend significant effort daily keeping the self-doubt and negative attitudes locked in a dank cellar somewhere below my cerebral cortex but sometimes they still wiggle out.
But here’s what I’ll tell you. When I began to implement these 10 steps to change, they got a little quieter, and occupied a little less of my conscious thought. When I committed to change and saw progress, the locks on the cellar got a little more secure, and the guards stood at the ready. Now, about a year later I can’t say that they never escape; but following these steps and continuing my development has given me new tools to keep them from derailing my progress.
It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
Reject the things that are familiar to you but that allow for negative thoughts, actions, and beliefs.