It’s almost impossible to cut through life with a dull rusty knife. No matter its size and regardless of your stubborn strength of purpose.
You just can’t rely on habits you don’t have, or care to sharpen regularly.
But it’s really quite simple.
Simple to think and say, certainly. Simple to imagine and dream, surely, but far more difficult to execute and put into action.
That is our struggle. Especially when the initial excitement of the moment is all but left for dead, in a ditch somewhere, by the side of the road to success.
So, you must dig your ditches and take your lumps. You must follow orders. Without compromise. Without consulting. Without fanfare. Without anticipating the lunch time whistle.
All successful people trust their life to their habits.
Those habits are life changing and require much hard work to build, but they are not as distant or impossible to embrace, despite the stories you tell yourself.
You can build and become whoever you damn well please.
Most people are defeated before they begin.
They think they can’t. They feel they can’t. That they’ll undoubtedly fail because they are fighting unbeatable windmills. It’s no surprise than, that their dutiful mind delivers everything as planned, and on time.
Failure and disappointment. Another example why they can’t.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Take a step. A step towards something or a step away from something. Building a habit or breaking a habit requires the same bravado.
If you’re looking to lose weight. Chew your food a little slower. Keep it in your mouth like you put it there for a reason and turn it into mush. Don’t stop until you’ve sucked all the taste out of it, like a flavourless stick of gum. Repeat. Until you no longer think about it. Until you no longer drive the habit, but the habit drives you.
When you master one thing, keep going, and master another.
You’ll drop things, forget things, and break things.
No matter.
Keep digging.
Simple steps. Simple changes. Repeated over and over again. One building upon another. Brick by brick. Rep by rep. Becoming stronger and deeper. A chorus of voices that will eventually lead you to places you never imagined.
But don’t forget to sharpen those habits.
Repetition moves our habits forward, but over time it dulls and rusts our resolve.
You begin to question how you got here. Why you are doing this. What the point is, and how great it would feel, if you just stopped and took a break. Or did that thing you know you shouldn’t, just one last time, because you’re stronger now, for just a little while.
If you get the urge to stop, don’t.
It’s time to sharpen your knife.
Change is what keeps us sharp. The quiet revolution of doing and thinking things differently. Of being open to new possibilities and realities.
It is always change that sharpens our resolve. Change gives us laser focus and revitalizes our tired habits.
The very thing that scares people, is what ultimately heals their life. It will help them avoid what is weighing them down, and uplift them into new adventures.
Don’t be afraid to begin something new. Don’t be afraid of building a new habit.
Stick with it. Work at it. Don’t stop.
When it’s time, don’t forget to sharpen, to adjust, to change your habits.
Change so that you can hear yourself say that you can, and no longer behold the illusion of you can’t.
