How to change, when change is hard

How to change, when change is hard

Un-fu#k yourself.

After going through a recent lull and getting stuck in a funk myself, I found myself cutting gym, drinking too much and nursing one bad never-ending hangover. Just existing became hard. What started as a drink here and there, once or twice a week snowballed out of control. Before I knew it, the everyday gym bro became the drinking every night, struggling to drag my ass to gym 3 times a week bro. When I did manage to go my workouts sucked, I just couldn't find my rhythm. My Diet and routine suffered greatly. In a space of a few months, I had gone from running towards my goals to someone who was stumbling in the wrong direction going backwards. I knew I needed to change something. Anyone who knows me well, knows I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. I can't do the in between, I had gone from being my super disciplined self to binge drinking every night. Thankfully drawing on my experience of digging myself out of the shit in the past, I turned things around. Consequently, I thought I would share some strategies that I use myself to get back on track when I've fallen off the horse. 1. Make an action plan Identify the habits that are holding you back, ask yourself why do I struggle with this so much? what are my triggers? Identify some positive steps you can take to move forward. Identify your goal. Identify how you can reduce/remove the triggers. 2. Have a practice week. You now have set your goal on where you want to go, now let us be realistic for a second. You are not going to get things perfect from day one allow yourself some leighway if you screw up, but there is no let's start this again Monday. You let yourself fuck up, sleep on it, wake up and try to be better that present day. Using my drinking as an example, I knew it would be a struggle to go the whole week without the booze, so my realistic goal was to not drink alcohol more nights than I did. Taking this into account I also went to the gym as many times as I could, but allowed myself to slack. Kicking the booze was the priority. 3. Learn to keep promises with yourself This is something I recently became complacent about, previously I went a year straight without forgetting to do it daily and I found a lot of value in the process. Every night before bed, or as soon as you wake (as soon as I wake for me), make a list of three to five things you want to achieve for the coming day. Ever set KPI's with your boss? well, this is doing it for yourself. Initially, start with three things that you can hit with not too much of a stretch. Make it something measurable and try to stay away from the subjective. This could be something like eat a healthy breakfast and lunch, go for a short walk, read a book before bed. As time progresses make them harder. I started doing my list on my practice week, I didn't list not drinking every day, just the days I knew I could do it. The week following that's when I cut out the alcohol with great success, I then just kept rolling with the process. It feels good finishing the day, knowing you ticked your goals off your list and more importantly that you kept those three promises to yourself. 4. Don't try to be perfect, you already are. “Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging.” - Marcus Aurelius