I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently about people finding the seasonal change tough, people finding it hard with the darker nights, they’re finding they lean on unhelpful or unhealthy habits or behaviours.
It’s really challenging to make change in your life, to make any change in your life. Whether that is to go to bed at a certain time, to drink more water, to go out and go for a walk every day, or to write your gratitude in the morning. Any of the things that you’re thinking about changing in your life, it takes time. It takes effort and it takes focus. And I’m going to remind you of that because in one of my recent coaching calls my client was talking about celebrating and sharing some of her progress. “When I was focusing on these things”, she said, “I just kept thinking about, something that Amie, you’d said some weeks ago, which was just, Trust the process, know that the things that you’re doing this week, if they’re aligned to where you want to be in, they’re helping you and serving you trust the process. They’re going to pay off later.”
And I want to remind you of that message. If you’re feeling a bit wobbly with the changing of season and just life as it is at the moment, I want to encourage you to really reconnect to who you are, what you’re about, what you’re focusing on this year and where you’re trying to get to for next year. Whatever action you’re taking now, or life changes you’re making, or rituals you’re putting in place support you, ensuring that all those things aligned with where you are now and where you want to be.
Even if you’re not seeing the benefit of those things right now, you must trust the process. You have to trust that, for example, practicing gratitude every day is going to lead you towards living with a positive, happier mindset. You have to trust that eating less biscuits every day is going to lead you towards making healthier choices and other aspects of your life. And possibly, not putting on the extra calories. I’m not saying don’t eat biscuits. I’ve just seen a biscuit myself. But everyone gets it when you talk about biscuits!
When you’re thinking about what’s important for you; just start to think about where do I want to be this time next month? Where do I want to be this time next year? And what are the things that I can do in my life right now that maybe I won’t see the impact of straight away, but I know that if I keep it up, if I build that regular practice, I’m going to see the results later down the line?
It’s all about those small steps that you can take every day.
Imagine you’re learning how to balance. One of my physio exercises from several years ago was to stand on one leg and balance. And I was like, okay, that sounds easy. But I was having some trouble with my back at the time, so it had to be worked on.
Guess what? The more I practiced, the better I got. And you might say, well, that’s obvious, but I just had to trust the process that that was going to help me. And every day, I wasn’t really noticing that much of a difference between the balance of how long I could stand on one leg for. But when I looked at where I started and then where I was a week later, a month later, three months later, which was standing on one leg balancing with my eyes closed, you can see the progress, but you can’t see the progress everyday sometimes because it is in micro steps, the micro progress that you’re making.
So I want to remind you this week to whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re working on. I want it to remind you to trust the process. If what you’re doing is aligned to where you are now and where you want to be, it will happen.