It’s funny as you move through life, how things can be good and bad. Depending on your perspective on the day.
One of the things I think about a lot is how things that seem to be good, like a good routine, over time, can end up feeling suffocating and like you are in a rut. The very structure you create to help you achieve stuff can end up feeling like your prison, but then a lack of routine can make you feel like you’ve landed in a rut too.
So where does this cross-over happen? When does helpful become harmful?
From observing myself (and spending probably way too much time in my own head,) I think it’s when we become unconscious of our own actions and forget why we are doing things. I think it’s also when we have become uninspired and missed our own cues that it was time to make a change. Like somehow veering off whatever course we set for ourselves to tweak or make something better is an indicator of failure.
I don’t know why we become unable to switch things up, I have found myself previously in life stuck in a rut which had been born of a routine I had to have, maybe it was because I never really felt like what I was doing was my choice or that things just had to be done, but whatever the reason, gripping white-knuckled to some outdated version of yourself and what you must do doesn’t work.
I gradually came to realize it was my choice, everything is always your choice. Although I am almost embarrassed to admit the time it took from when I realized it was my choice to actually make a change (but that’s another story for another day). But I stuck with it and did make that initial change and it wasn’t big, but mentally so very liberating.
These days I self-evaluate much more frequently, and if something is not working out, I change it. But in all honesty, the self-evaluation process for me is not some set appointment with myself to evaluate all things in my life and how they are working for me, it’s more like becoming aware of feeling bored or irritated with something I’m doing regularly so then (this next bit was huge for me) instead of just being pissy about it, I get curious and start noticing what that is. – Because let’s be real here, the time between feeling the feeling and getting curious and noticing what is causing the feeling can often be a few days or weeks. And then once I have noticed what it is, resisting all urges to completely trash something, I keep doing it for a while longer, before tweaking the routine, just a little…maybe changing the way I approach it, or look at it, or do some prep the night before, or a little more research, or a load of laundry on Wednesday instead of letting it all pile up for the weekend overwhelm.
Point is, I am not satisfied with being my own bully anymore, and neither should you. If something is not working for you, get curious, become conscious of it, and gradually make a change.
You can do it!!
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