Battling Resistance to Positive Change and Overcoming Self-Sabotaging Cycles
Personal training clients taught me many of us are stuck cycling through behaviors that prevent us from reaching our most desired goals… and it goes so far beyond consistency with diet and exercise for fitness goals.
Another thing I’ve learned, though, is some people either:
Get tired of their own BS and immediately identify how & consistently execute on stopping their self-sabotaging behaviors
Strategize & put in effort over a period of time to identify self-sabotaging behaviors and the root cause to it’s existence in order to move them closer to the desired change
Remain imprisoned by their own “medioric” behavior
I don’t mean for mediocracy to sound so harsh — please don’t take it as such. But I ask what other than the literal definition of mediocre is it to desire something different for your life and be the very thing standing in your own way of achieving it?
Choosing the familiar, even when it’s not in your ultimate favor, is always the easy way. It’s the mediocre way.
Mediocre: of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance
Overcoming my own form of mediocracy…
My partner and I first met in 2014. There was definitely an initial physical attraction that kept me swooning in distraction during our large lecture class.
Beyond that, though, I instinctually recognized qualities in him that I always admired about my father. I felt as though I knew his story even though I had never spoken a word to him. I felt like I knew he was hardworking, responsible, respectful, a careGIVER before a careTAKER, and had to overcome a lot of challenges in his life. I felt like I knew he had goals of going places… Of being the exception to the harsh rules of someone born into similar circumstances as him. The draw I had to him was one of a kind.
Finally, he caught up to me after class one day and asked me out. I ducked and dodged his advances and efforts and eventually the semester ended and so did our communication, rightfully so. Life continued on for the next seven years.
I lived in regret the whole seven years for not going out with him while I continued in an unfulfilling, frustrating, heartbreaking, and exhausting dating scene where I always seemed to give more than I received.
Every now and then I would gripe to my mom about “the guy from college” that asked me out. My “the one that got away”. She always knew exactly who I was referring to. Something inside of me knew that had I said yes, my love life would have turned out a lot different. It was a feeling that I would have been loved like never before.
The thing that I instinctively knew was good for me was the same thing I let run me back into my same mediocre circumstances with love & relationships. I was scared so I did what was safe and familiar.
I recognized that being scared was my reason for denying him in the first place. I knew if I engaged him it would have been an experience more different than anything I knew up to that point. That it would probably challenge me in ways I wasn’t prepared or mature enough for. I preferred to stay in the safe zone of battling with a doomed on & off again relationship and entertaining people who I knew ultimately wouldn’t challenge or love me in the ways I wanted.
So I JUMPED at the opportunity to reconnect seven years later. Reluctantly and scared shitless because I knew how much my life would change. My heart was screaming at me to take the plunge but my mind was bombarded with all kinds of fearful and intimidating thoughts at giving real love a chance..This wasn’t going to be a shallow experience and I knew that since 2014.
Now that I’m in the thick of it and we are growing our family, I can say I’ve had to battle with a lot of insecurities and getting comfortable with leaning all the way into vulnerability in order for this relationship to grow and flourish to this point. This is EXACTLY what I was fearful of in the first place. However, I knew I would be dis-servicing myself if I allowed us to fall apart by staying small in the ways that I gave and received love. I constantly reminded myself that I had full control over whether we thrived or not by choosing to face my fears when it came to love and building partnership. I refused to be the reason I failed myself. This was the love I truly wanted and needed after all.
So I just had to grow TF up by accepting and executing on the hard things. I had to trust that with practice & consistency the demands of a legitimate loving partnership wouldn’t be difficult forever and I would actually be living out a dream with the person I knew was for me.
I see this acceptance as an adult reality that we must all face in various ways if we truly seek the best for ourselves out of life:
Doing the hard thing is almost always fruitful in the best kind of way.
I’ve seen so many people become their own worst enemy, especially in personal training.
Digging their own potholes on their road to progress and change — preventing them from getting to where they want to go. And yes, potholes are to be expected. Change isn’t linear. But I’m speaking to and for the people who repeatedly dig and drive over the same pothole, replace the same tire over and over, and can’t seem to identify why they can’t just avoid the damn pothole!
Understanding the “why” is so important because it leads to a deeper understanding and awareness of how to avoid or prevent the pothole in the first place.
In my case, it was fear based. I preferred to date small because it kept me comfortable and it felt safe. I could be the same me without any challenge to mature in life & love.
So for those of you who aren’t the type to just go cold turkey for what you want, to just stop digging your own potholes, and require a little more strategy and digging to your approach for change, I’ve developed a tool for you! Think of it as a thought process to guide your efforts to the change you seek in your life.