I cannot stress enough the importance of getting it right. Anything that is going to be foundational in your life needs to be rock solid. It must become your automatic ‘go to’ response, no thinking required. For most of us, that is going to take considerable time. Unfortunately, we often underestimate just how much time it will take us to make lasting change. We try to accomplish too much too soon, and in doing so we shortchange ourselves and fail to meet our challenge.
At my ripe old age—perhpas a little wisdom does come with age!—I have decided that I need to concentrate on less things when I am undertaking lifestyle change. Well, exactly one thing. I need to do whatever it takes to make one change happen and give it a big push—all my energy—at the start, followed by enough energy to keep it in a holding pattern until it becomes so entrenched that I don’t have to think about it any more. If it’s to stop drinking, I concentrate even more thought and effort on my project than I think it could possibly need. I do whatever it takes. For a while I stop going where there are too many temptations. I find, and stick to, a substitute drink, whether it’s nonalcoholic wine or soda water or tonic water. If there is alcohol still in the house, it just needs to not be in my ‘go to’ place. That’s now the home of the substitute. Then, over time, I wean myself off the substitute. The substitute’s job is just to be there as the ritual while I break the alcohol’s perceived hold.
It might seem it takes a long time to accomplish, but that’s my project for six or seven months before a new challenge is undertaken. I am now rock solid in my thoughts, my habits, my actions. I have succeeded, this time, where I have failed many times before by arrogantly wanting it all to happen by magic; by being much too impatient and failing to take into account the energy required for lasting change. And once the lasting change has been accomplished, almost no energy is required again, so in the long run you have succeeded instead of failing again and again.
And surely that’s worth the time and effort you have invested.