This article is the first in a series for the month of April. We’re spring cleaning at Team Happy, and each Monday will bring a new theme helping you to clear the clutter from your mind, your body, and your physical space. For some, spring cleaning has excitedly begun, while others need a gentle psychological push to get that spring in their step. May this one motivate you to get moving…
In January, I wrote an article about the connection between pain and happiness where I referenced a dear colleague whose cancer returned for the fourth time. The irony is I wrote the article on a Saturday, fully intending to publish it the following Monday. Except come Monday I was comatose at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, CA.
I’m fine, and the point here is not to engender sympathy or engage in self-involved prattling. The point is to discuss another roadblock to happiness and emotional wellness.
Think of the last time you made a major change in your life. Maybe you looked at your bank statement and said, No more buying stuff I don’t need — I think I’m an intem-clinger! Perhaps it was the soul-crushing corporate job that got you to polish up your resume and get to networking, already. Or when you finally broke away from that torrid relationship after the sixth not-so-subtle sign of infidelity.
Did you notice how each example involves the push comes to shove principle? Most people are motivated to change when the threat of losing something valuable is near. (This may seem counter-intuitive for de-cluttering, but many a relationship has been threatened with, “It’s me, or the stuff…Choose who or what goes.”)
The big problem with operating under this system is change and action are inspired by negative emotions.
We therefore associate change with feeling bad. Because we’re wired to avoid pain and suffering, we end up doing nothing until our back is against the wall.
Then we’re forced into motivation by negativity.
It’s the therapy client who schedules the initial appointment at the 11th hour because, “My wife threatened to leave me and take the kids with her if I don’t find healthy ways to cope with stress.”
The irony about making motivation to change contingent upon a negative consequence is we’re ensuring that we’ll feel more miserable and more anxious with each passing day. As the saying goes, “Time waits for no one.”
What’s the magic motivation solution, you wonder?
There is none. Magic exists in fairy tales and Harry Potter movies. Believing otherwise is part of the rigid thought process which keeps procrastinators mired in misery, anxiety and depression.
Change does not happen in an epiphany — despite what the Facebook quotes may tell you. You will not get hit over the head by the Aha! Fairy at noon today while sipping a soy latte. And Mr. Motivation will not visit tonight while you’re tossing and turning in bed.
What you can do is something. The only thing between you and change is you.
So get out of your own way.
One small step forward is better than two giant steps back.
Seeking the positives within the negatives always sheds light.
And once you start small, you will see that your problem is not so big after all. You don’t get rid of all the crap in your life in one fell swoop. You take baby steps: You close your eyes and visualize how you’ll look and feel after you shed 185 pounds (drama weighs a lot), and you vow to be honest with yourself. You then choose one area of your home and spend five minutes organizing your stuff because getting rid of physical clutter is safer than getting rid people clutter right now. The next day you do five more minutes…
Do something! Anything. Just don’t be a dumbass like me. No one needs to end up in the ICU with a near-fatal respiratory illness to internalize the message that maybe now’s a good time to slow the hell down.
But as much as I loathed being tethered to IV’s, hearing the piecing screams of that poor soul in Room 524, and not seeing my son for four miserable days, I never felt sorry for myself, not once. I never succumbed to “why me?”
Why?
I knew exactly what got me there, and the changes I needed to make. There was no glimpsing life outside my hospital room window like, “Oh wow — now I really appreciate life. I can’ t wait to call up so-and-so and tell them how much I love them!” (Though repeatedly flipping off the noon-time joggers easily and breezily looping around California Boulevard was fair game).
The irony is that after the fourth doctor came by and said something to the effect of, “You’re a lucky lady. We almost lost you,” I kept thinking about my sick colleague. For whatever reason I had it in my (rigid) mind that the pain and happiness article had to go up on Monday, January 26th. Only that day is forever lost to me. At the very least I noticed my “push comes to shove” mentality and how I screwed myself.
The good news is I’ve made lots of small changes and this is making all the difference in my world.
My challenge for you is to do the same. Don’t wait for motivation. Be your motivation.
Because my dear friend, though we’ve never met, I can damn-near guarantee that anything standing between you and your goal is nothing compared to suffering though a fourth round of brain cancer, am I right?
Do something.
Anything.
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