Change

Making small shifts in your life can reap massive benefits in your life... that last past the New Year rush.

For the last year I have been obsessing over anything about productivity and habits. It all started when my friend, Toby Demoss (check out his Substack!), encouraged me to read Atomic Habits by James Clear. This book opened my mind to a new genre of content, all with how we can improve our life incrementally. (Did I finish the book? No. That is one of my weaknesses I am working on ;) )Now as we all know, everyone sets goals in the New Year and many of them are left incomplete or crammed into the last couple of months of the year; and of course, we expect the same results from our three months of cramming that we would from our year of consistently showing up we could have had under our belt. I am guilty of this too, but this year I want real change. This post will share some ideas from Clear’s work but also some helpful thoughts I am holding onto coming into this New Year to implement change that will last through the New Year rush.

In 2021 I attempted to train for a marathon, and burned out before I arrived at the starting line. In 2022, I attempted to ‘make progress’ in certain areas without obtainable goals, this led to very limited growth or change. All of this on top of struggling through finishing my undergrad in Biblical Studies, I was overwhelmed by the amount of failure in my life. It began to define how I viewed myself and my ability to accomplish awesome things. Through work on myself, I have arrived at what I see as the This year I want real change though.

I want to read that book.

I want to run that race.

I want to start that idea.

So what do we need to get that done?

I often recall a conversation with a friend of mine, we were talking about how I had not been in the gym in a while. I took ownership of my poor gym attendance, but aptly diagnosed my issue.

‘Michael you don’t know how to drag your feet.’

I never learned that consistency does not always equal high levels of motivation. My friend was encouraging me to drag myself through the tasks I wanted to get done. Should every task I do require me to drag my feet? No, but to have days or even weeks of dragging my feet is often a precursor to success. Understanding that motivation is not an accurate gage of progress is an important note to keep in mind as we pursue change in 2024. Are you feeling discouraged about your new business? Show up and drag your feet. You aren’t meeting the goal of new members you set as a trainer? Show up and drag your feet. You aren’t seeing progress on the youtube channel you have been wanting to start for years? Show up and drag your feet. Our life should not be dictated by how we feel, because our emotions are a poor indicator of progress.

Your effort dictates the trajectory of your goal, motivation is a red herring on the pursuit of the goals we set out to achieve.

The second way to see success in making change in your life comes from a tactic Clear uses, which is to make your desired habits or goals more easily accessible. Clear taught me that if I see my running shoes beside my bedside, with my running clothes laid out, I am more likely to go on a run that morning. Having our habits setup so they are easy to start and eliminating the extra steps required to get started are one of the main practices that helps me seamlessly get into my practice for said day. Matt D’Avella talks about this on his youtube channel for the reason he wears a very minimalist wardrobe, he sums it up to decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is that feeling after a long day of work, where the majority of your capacity to make choices has been exhausted by your workday. So in order to store up our decisions for the day on the thing’s we care for, lets make our habits easier to start by setting ourselves up by eliminating unnecessary steps for our future self.

Conclusion

So we want to make change in the new year, two ways we facilitate change is by knowing motivation is fleeting and that if we make our habits easier for our future selves we are more likely to put them into practice. This year lets make drastic life change, lets take a chance on that idea you have had for a while! I love self improvement because to me it is a response of worship to the opportunity God has given me by sending His son to die on a cross, resurrecting three days later, and, thus giving me an opportunity to experience eternal life with God! I am only able to better myself because Jesus has given me the chance to taste the freedom that only He can make available as the Lord and savior of my life. I love self help and productivity, and I cannot wait to chase after our goals this year! I’ll leave you with this.

Goals should not be an end in themselves, but the formation that is done in ourselves is the reward for our labor. Not a medal, not a material prize, but the result of hard work consistently done well. We do not have to be consistently great everyday, we just have to be consistently good.