We all have things in life that we would like to change or get better at. Sometimes these are bigger goals like losing 50 pounds, other times simple and smaller measures like practicing mindfulness each day. There are lots of resources that outline how to create goals and the steps to get to them, one of my favorites is the SMART acronym. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time sensitive. The key being the more specific you can get, the better. But what comes next, why do we get stuck after we've got our goals and steps all set? Well that may be slightly different for everyone, but there is one simple bit of knowledge that most likely will help you along most any path to success.
Learn to be ok with being uncomfortable. Most of the time, that's what it comes down to. We get to a point and discomfort rears its ugly head, alters our progress, makes us stop in our tracks and has us turn back to our old pattern. We want to stay within what is most comfortable, because well it's more comfortable that way. But that's not the way to change things up. That's not the way progress happens.
We have to learn that discomfort isn't all that bad, so that when the moment happens we think differently about it. Usually when we get out of our comfort zone, we think of all the ways that it's not going to work.. "I can't do this everyday.. this just isn't me.. the old pattern isn't all that bad.. I'll do it later on". Yet what about all the ways that discomfort makes us grow, the ways that it creates new opportunities, what about thinking and feeling what it would be like to overcome and finally breakthrough? The key change is how we think about getting out of that comfort zone.
Seeing discomfort as a step towards success and not a roadblock, is vital to any difficult journey. There is resilience in hardship, know this. It can help you grow.
There's an old saying that goes "if we do what we've always done, we'll get what we've always got". The key here is to make at least one change to get a changed result. And often that may stem from the uneasy, the unknown and the uncomfortable. So after you take those first few steps towards changing something up, remember that roadblock ahead simply means you're on the right path.