What are you giving your attention to?
Are you on a new exercise regimen? Are you on a new eating plan? Have you started a new spiritual practice? Can you feel the dedication and excitement and hard core focus you have right now? Or that you had in the first week of setting out on your new journey with behavior changes?
Have you asked yourself “why do I lose this focus, excitement, and dedication after 2-4 weeks or sometimes as quick as the first few days?”
Here is the truth: You got distracted!
You have started giving your attention to something else and slowly but surely your new journey, exercise regimen, eating plan, or spiritual practice, that you decided was best for you to adventure out on, has become a distant memory.
This came to me when I recently fasted from watching TV in the evenings Sun-Thur. When my family was sitting to watch their nightly shows, I went in my Zen space to read, write, meditate, study, or have some spa time. This was going great for a week or so, then came the excuses as to why I should change my mind just this one night, normally I desperately just needed to turn my brain off and numb out. This led to doing the same the next week and soon I was watching tv more in the evenings then not, once again.
During these two weeks of slowly watching more and more TV, which I was not fully aware of, I was running on autopilot. I did not even realize what I had done until the whole reason I started this new evening routine started showing up again and I had lost all the good that came from staying the course. I started realizing that I was more tired, I had less inspiration, I was not WANTING to work my business or do my schoolwork as I had while fasting from TV.
That is when it hit me, without my conscious mind knowing it I had become distracted by TV once again. I also let other things distract me, my families routines; I always want to spend more time with my husband and kiddos, and this made it easy to justify sitting on the couch with them. I also allowed my physical and mental fatigue to distract me and fall into a ball of exhaustion on to the couch.
What I could have done to avoid these distractions:
Kept my “why” in my conscious view, either written or by speaking it more often.
In the beginning, I could have reflected on what triggers me to want to sit in front of the tv and then come up with action steps to avoid or handle those traps when they come up.
In general, with any new decision we make that will change behaviors for our overall well-being but, will disrupt old patterns we must start the adventure fully prepared.
What it looks like to prepare:
What is your why? Why are you deciding to change this behavior or adding a behavior in? Once you have that down in fully understood and stated, then attach some serious emotion to it, dream about what it will feel like 30 or 60 days from now if you stay on course.
Write and speak your why! Write it down in your journal. Write it on sticky notes and mirrors. Set alarms on your phone that have your why as the label when they go off. Tell someone you trust all about it and, if you dare 😊, ask them to be an accountability partner and tell them specifically what this would mean. IE: “If I go to sit on the couch next to you to watch TV will you say to me, have you consulted your why before choosing to do so?”
Prepare for your triggers or falling into old familiar habits. If you do have an accountability partner, they can be one option to avoid these trip hazards. You can also practice presence so that you are aware of what you’re feeling and why. Then what will you do if this happens that is in line with your new behavior/ lifestyle change? For my example: I know that on Mondays and Wednesdays I am extremely mentally spent and will need to relax and numb out so I will go straight to a bath after dinner and possibly a yoga/meditation and lay in bed early and listen to an audible book to rest my eyes (GEEZE, I wish I had that evening planned out before hand, it sounds AMAZING).
Remember if you want it bad enough you should prepare for it. In the same way that you would prepare for a road trip you should also prepare for these journeys! Just because it is hard does not mean you are not supposed to take this journey; it just means that you may need to prepare better. It also means that your next big journey that you set off for will come easier after you have conquered this one!
My last thought I would like to leave you with is this:
If you have decided this is the way you want to be, whatever that means, there should be no other option as it says it in the name, de = 'OFF' + caedere = 'CUT'! That is the Latin word that decide came from. I encourage you to “CUT OFF” any other options when deciding these lifestyle changes that you want to achieve. Read more on this in my last blog about “Making decisions”
If you are wanting to make some lifestyle changes and want some inspiration, support and all around sisterly love, feel free to click here and I would love to welcome you to our FB Group and our community of woman SSWT Savage Sisters!
Thank you for taking some of your precious time to read this blog post!
Sending blessing and lots of love to you!
Tiffany