I love the quote, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you always got.” It’s a reminder that if I’m unhappy with any part of my life, I can change it. And basically to stop whining and do something.
But it isn’t easy, is it? Not for me, anyway.
As a lover of routine, I am very susceptible to ruts. Good and bad.
My grocery list is pretty healthy and I tend to stick with what’s on it. I don’t do a “cheat day” because I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. We walk our dog about 6 miles every day, pretty much without fail. These are good ruts.
However, when I veer into behaviors that aren’t so good, I can get caught up in them, too. Getting sucked into HGTV marathons, grazing on mini dark chocolate peanut butter cups (so good frozen!), buying into the “mommy needs wine” culture. Bad ruts.
The tricky thing about the “bad ruts” is that when I was in them, they felt really comfy. And it was easy to justify these choices. Are they going to love it or list it? I need to know. The bag’s almost empty, better finish it. Another glass? Don’t mind if I do.
But after a time, little voices started to speak up and I could only silence them for so long. The truth was I wasn’t living in a way that made me happy. Starting a new career took care of the tube time and I just quit buying the damned peanut butter cups. As for wine time, well, I’m not a mommy and it turns out I didn’t need it.
Making these changes wasn’t easy, but they were important to me. The cost was worth every ounce of effort that went into the fight.
And it’s funny what happened when I snapped out of my own state of complacency. Achieving small, yet difficult, things, gave me the strength to conquer bigger, more challenging things. And even when I slid back a few times, digging deep to pick myself up and keep going gave me more confidence and more power than I ever knew I had.
Looking at it now, I wonder what took me so long. You see platitudes about each day being a fresh start, which can be especially annoying when they’re on a meme with a picture of a sunrise or something, but it’s true. No one can decide how many peanut butter cups I’m going to eat but me. No one else is going to put away my wine glass for me.
Every morning I get to decide.
* I feel like I need to qualify the word “bad.” Bad is a subjective term and the negative power lies with the beholder. The behaviors I call bad are from my lens because they weren’t serving my life well.
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