Do you ever find yourself stuck in that place of 'all-or-nothing' thought patterns? Maybe this comes up when you think about your diet or your movement routine? Or maybe it's a dream vacation, or changing a routine, or starting a new habit.
We want to see results (big or small) right away and when that doesn't happen, what do we do?
I think we can get stuck here for many reasons, partly because we see other people "doing it" on social media. Partly, I think, because some of us have that 7th grade coach (no shade on coaches btw 😉) in the back of our mind yelling - "Go Big or Go Home!" If we don't (or can't) go big, do we just go home. Is that it?
What if there was a different way? What if we went small, did just one thing, made one small shift? What then?
What comes to mind for me when I think about making something smaller, easier, more manageable for me right now. Well, honestly, for a long time I thought, "it's not enough." I thought, "How am I supposed to get to where I want to go if all I can do is this super small thing right now?"
But I'm learning this is where the fault is. If we do the super small thing, then we do it again, and again and again. Eventually we will be able to add on and it won't be such a huge leap. It will be one step at a time.
I've seen this repeatedly with my clients and in my own life as I began to shift my mindset. Lately for me it's been around a meditation practice. For years I heard about the multitude of benefits of a mediation practice, and yet starting with sitting for 20 min a day (where I want to be) just led to quitting, starting again, and quitting…again. I did this over and over again - for years.
Then late last year, I committed to starting super small. I found 2-minute meditations, then 5-minute meditations and slowly added on. I am now on a streak, and today is day 59 in a row. Wait, what?? Three months ago, I honestly didn't think this was possible. Doing my practice every day, even for just a few minutes, I am really starting to see what people are talking about when they say, "it's not the destination it’s the journey."
I mean 59 days in a row, isn't a year, it isn't 5 years, but goodness it's more than I've ever done in the past. It took changing my mindset from, "I need to be sitting for 20 minutes a day for it to count," to "I'm going to do a little bit each day."
If I do 2 minutes is that enough - yes, it is. If I do 15 minutes is that enough - yes, it is. I don't compare one to the other. The goal is to sit every day.
Action step: Are you stuck in an all-or-nothing thought pattern about something? Thinking you must "go big or go home." What if you went small, what would that look like? Find the 2-minute version and start there. By repeating the process, it will add up and make a difference, step by step you will become the person you want to be.
Remember, healthy can be simple. Taking small actions today will lead to big results in the future.