When your habits turn against you...

and do it so sneakily you don't even know it's them!

Habits are a funny little thing.

They pretty much fly under the radar, undetected and undisturbed. They’re the things that happen while we’re busy living. Soooo busy living. Did I tell you HOW BUSY I AM?!?!?!

We’re thinking about this thing, or that thing, trying to solve this problem, or that one… and as we’re obsessing, our tried and true habits are running alongside us, fully intact… Ummmm, yes I’ll eat this block of cheese while I repeatedly place hand in the cracker box and think about what I must do next. (All on auto-pilot!)

That’s why, if you ever want to change anything in your life (weight, attitude, career, relationships, yes to all) the BEST place to begin is by noticing your habits. 

For example, I’ve gotten into this headspace in the past two months that I’m no longer a pretty good writer but a crappy one that can’t seem to crank out anything worth publishing because what’s the point, it’s crap! I’ve lost my creative edge, my nerve, my swing. And my internal chatter picked up on it like a cat to the sound of a can opener. ALL OVER IT!

And it infested my brain so much that I stopped writing. Period. End of story. A has-been who never was is what I became.

Your mind has a way of building momentum and stories are its favorite. The longer, more sordid the story, the more highly regarded it is to the mind. It will feast on it like a roast beast—a feast I cannot stand in the least! (Anyone??)

So I looked at this habitual thought pattern and decided it was time for the story to change, the situation to improve, or at the very least, me not giving up on something I love to do. That meant I had to shed a lot of unwanted, debilitating thoughts that kept me believing I wasn’t good enough. And I had to stop thinking that everyone else was doing it better—don’t even get me started on everyone else! Ever notice how when you take in so much of how other people are doing “it” and killing “it” that you throw your hands up, wave the white flag and bow down to the gods and cry for mercy becauuuuuuuse you think that will never be you, how could it be you because you suck, and that’s totally what I did. I let everyone’s success deflate me like a whoppy cushion.

Turns out though—and this is where it gets even more infuriating—it’s all my own doing. It’s my repeated bad habit of thinking thoughts that only serve to slowly erode my confidence. I did it, and continue to do it to myself, and I bet if there’s something you’re trying to achieve that’s eluding you time and time again, it’s your fault. It’s always you. It’s always me. It’s we. We do this to ourselves. Thoughts I created that turned into habits I repeated until they felt real and I believed them. (And yes, internal conversations are incredibly habitual.)

Lucky for us—or incredibly annoying since we can’t point the finger at someone else—these are the things we can change. But we have to become aware of them. Aware of how we are keeping the habits alive and the thoughts circulating in our brain sphere. Aware that we hold all the cards.

So this is me, limping into the arena to make a comeback so flabbergasting and intoxicating you won’t be able to resist trying to create your own comeback, no matter what you’re after.

What can you change, improve, or lose simply by beginning to pay attention? What are you dying to try but let fear get in the way?! Dish in the comments!!