Don't Make Changes, Make Improvements

I’m all about growing as we go. Remembering I don’t have to have all the answers, as long as I’m growing a little more each day.

I personally feel fulfilled when I am working on myself and striving to do the next right thing. I like making better choices than I did yesterday, and I feel good about myself when I set small goals and work towards them. I also try to practice grace with myself when I don’t work on goals for a little while or take a little mental break from self-improvement. A few helpful things that I tell myself when I do come back from my mental vacation and jump back into goals and improvement are as follows:

1. Don’t always associate huge changes with measurable improvements, but focus on attainable improvements that lead to positive changes over time

Sometimes the big, difficult changes are just that...too big and too difficult to sustain. But a small reasonable improvement could have you seeing a change down the line. Let’s say you aren’t a morning person, but you’d like to be more productive at the start of your day. You don’t necessarily have to set a goal to wake up at 6 am if that's just not for you right now. Instead, make a plan to get up 30 minutes before you usually do, whatever time that may be. This might seem easier to tackle, and will give you a little taste of having more time to be productive in the morning. And who knows, maybe it'll give you the motivation to add another half an hour, and another after that and so on!

2. Do more of what already works for you

As James Clear talked about in his podcast interview with Brene Brown, we miss out on a lot of simple opportunities to make improvements to our lives simply because they aren’t new or exciting. Something we are already doing is probably something that is easy for us to complete, we could just try to do more of that. Por ejemplo, I set a goal for the month to add more cardio to my weekly routine. I like cardio, I like the way I feel after, and one of the ways I know I can complete more cardio is simply running outside of my house for 15 minutes. My cardio doesn’t HAVE to be shaken up and turned upside-down by joining a spin studio, trying the latest CrossFit challenge, or training for a marathon that I definitely don’t want to do. I can simply run. I already do it, so it’s easier and more feasible to just add a little more of it to my week.

3. Don’t dismiss the power of negative thinking

First of all, I love that my lady’s book club picks go from something like Get Your Shit Together by Sarah Knight, to Erotic Stores for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal. The spectrum is incredible. However, I resonated with the way Sarah Knight talks about the power of negative thinking when she said that goals don’t always have to be about aspiring to what you want to be, so much as putting an end to what you don’t want to be. “Miss fewer workouts”, and “eat fewer unhealthy foods” are perfectly acceptable and admirable intentions.

Ultimately what I’m trying to say is, I don’t think you have to change yourself or your ways to see improvements, I think it’s the little improvements that create change for us and around us. At least that's what works for me and my life. What are some things you remind yourself of when it's time to buckle down and set some goals?

Thanks for reading, you're amazing. :)

xoxo,

Trishae