You Must Also Know Your Weaknesses!

Hello my lovey doves! I am here just briefly (I am working away on other endeavors at the moment and there was another post I thought of while I was driving earlier and I seem to have forgotten it … with any luck it will pop back into this steroidsy screwy brain of mine!) to “jot down” something I have noticed. I have written a few posts over the last few weeks and months about “doing things” and sticking to them; the post I wrote about sticking to a flexibility plan is a good example of what I am talking about. At any rate, as I have also discussed here, I know there is a “psychological limit” on how long we actually “follow through” on things like “resolutions” which is why the general idea of making resolutions for the “new year” is really not a great one.

With all of that said, I have found where my “point of stagnation” begins – that is, the TIME at which I start to become “bored” with the monotony of repetition despite still wanting to achieve the desired outcome. For me, this point seems to be around 3 weeks; that is, although I have the mental conviction that I want to achieve “x” goal after 20 or so days, I have the tendency to “slack off” and not see whatever it is I am doing to achieve “x” through. I think this is a crucial point of self-awareness: it is so important, in fact, that I actually encourage all of you to do just this – find something you REALLY WANT TO DO that you have to do on your own (for examples, go to the gym every day; eat really well indefinitely; read a book a week, &c. &c.) … and do it … and then see how long it takes for you to just get that feeling of “I’m over it, I want to do something else” or that feeling of “hitting the wall” proverbially. I think this is so crucial because it tells us WHEN WE HAVE TO START REALLY USING OUR WILLPOWER TO START TO FOLLOW OUR DREAMS / MEET OUR GOALS. That is to say, for me, the first three weeks take a little bit of willpower, but I seem to just do it because I have told myself I will do it and so I do. HOWEVER, somewhere around that 20-21 day mark, I stall out and if I am not seeing “massive” changes (and sometimes even when I am!), I tend to stop doing what I have been doing and do something else (and the cycle notoriously repeats!).

So knowing when the point of “boredom” (for a lack of a better term, really) hits is CRUCIAL in getting to the point you want to get to; if you can identify WHEN your brain starts to fight against itself (or your body starts to fight against you – not in an illness sort of way – &c.,) you can FIGHT BACK because you KNOW that it is just that “time” at which things start to feel “monotonous.” I think this is an especially difficult challenge for those of us who have lived lives of chronic illness – especially those of us who have lived lives of chronic illness and are intelligent – because we have never really HAD to follow through in order to get by; we “missed” that conditioning when we were absent in school, &c., and I know for me personally, that lack of “trying” was only increased by the fact that at least in school (and many other pursuits) I didn’t HAVE to try – I just did well without having to try at all. However, as we all know as adults, things don’t work like that in “real life.” So it is very helpful to know WHEN you start to “fight” yourself because knowledge really is power here and you can use that knowledge to FIGHT BACK!

I hope that was a helpful “tip” for all of you – especially those of you who do have “resolutions” for the “new year” and for anyone who is trying to see something “big” (no matter how “big” it really is!) through to the end. I genuinely hope you are all having a happy and healthy day wherever you are in the world and I hope to be back later with the post I thought of while driving that has since escaped me! So for now, I do, adieu.

My heart….

❤ Always, Beth