Start Small – and Start Now
We’ve all been there – it’s January 1 and we have grand ideas for taking charge of our health in the new year. Inspired by a surge of energy, we might sign up for a year-long gym membership and plan to go every day right after work.
Unfortunately, unless you were already a very dedicated gym-goer before, a move like that may not work out (no pun intended) the way you’d like. The habit is simply not ingrained in us.
Many of us recognize where we’d like to make changes in our lives. It can be related to our physical health, time management, relationships, or habits. Recognizing a need for change is a giant first step. What’s more, making the leap from recognition to actually creating change is an even more giant step! But – we then need to be careful not to bite off more than we can chew.
The reality is that sometimes we make change too complicated. For example, say we have wanted to prioritize exercise for a while now. But rather than starting small and slowly, we may believe we need do several things at once: Join a gym, go out and buy some nice (read: possibly expensive) workout clothes, pencil in daily workouts alongside our work/family/social obligations, and completely overhaul our meal plans. As a result, we get overwhelmed by all the things we have to do, put off making the change, and maybe even abandon our plans altogether.
If you recognize yourself in a pattern like this, you are in good company! So many people struggle with this type of all-or-nothing thinking. However, here is an alternative approach: Just start, and start now.
Don’t set your goals too high. Just start somewhere and know that any change – no matter how teeny-tiny it may seem – will still pull you in the right direction. And if something is good for your body, your body will want more of it. And the more consistently you expose your body to the changes it craves, the more these changes will become habitual.
Small, consistent changes are key.
For example, say you want to go from drinking eight cups of coffee a day, to replacing that coffee with water. Coffee addicts know how hard it is to just quit coffee – it’s nearly impossible for many. Instead, work toward this goal more slowly – maybe before getting that third cup of coffee, fill your mug with water and drink it – kind of as a requirement for pouring that third cup. Once you do that, go about the rest of the day as usual. By the end of the day, you may have only increased your water intake by a single cup, but that is one cup more than you’re used to. And it required relatively little effort and pain on your part – which means, you’re more likely to implement that same change tomorrow. (After all, we humans aren’t big fans of pain – in fact, we usually go to great lengths to avoid it. Which is a major reason why sudden, sweeping health changes don’t usually work – we experience so much discomfort from being yanked out of our usual patterns, that we don’t really find it worthwhile to continue in our health pursuits.)
Sometimes changes may seem too small to make any meaningful difference, but with repetition over time, they are likely to give rise to longer-lasting habits – and the creation of these habits is what will truly set you up for better long-term health.
The trade-off, as you probably guessed, is that this process requires much more time and patience than a major dietary overhaul. You’re probably not going to lose 10 pounds in a month by making these tiny changes. But ask yourself what is more important – achieving a goal quickly without setting down a firm foundation for lifelong maintenance (meaning you’re likely to encounter the same issue again and again in life), or taking longer to reach your health goals, knowing that you’re establishing healthy habits that will keep you continually fit and energetic.
An important caveat: If you “mess up,” don’t worry about it – try again. And again, and again and again. It does not matter how many times you mess up, as long as you try again. We all mess up constantly. In fact, we usually “mess up” because something wasn’t working well the first time. But during each setback, see if you can determine what needs tweaking, make adjustments accordingly, and see what happens. It’s a continual process of trial, error, refining our approach, and trying again – and we’re all figuring it out day by day!