Back when I was sick I would talk myself out of doing something that was good for me, or a goal I wanted to reach, or, a new way of life, because I would set specific parameters of what that journey had to look like, or, what conditions I had to find myself in to do the actual work. I would say I would start on Monday, top of the week, because that was the day for fresh starts, or even that I had to start at the beginning of the day, so if I messed up, in my eyes, I would just write off the day or week and continue living the way I had been. A lot of time was wasted in waiting for the those Mondays or mornings. I would wait for the ideal conditions, or what I thought they where, maybe even raising the bar just enough to make it feel out of reach, when it could possibly solved by just continuing to try to make the changes I wanted to make. Much of it also was my head not wanting me to succeed, making up excuses why I couldn’t make positive changes in my life. I had built a prison for myself, and I had also built the walls myself that surrounded that prison, but I also held the key for my own release.
When I had finally run myself into the ground, to an emotional, spiritual and physical bottom, I knew I had to get serious about making some changes. My life, now, depended on it, and the excuses of the past had to be shattered if I was going to get better, the time to start was right now, not the next day or next week, I knew I only had so much time and that time was running out. I called myself out to everyone, told everyone what I was planning to do to get well and was honest about the place I had gotten to. I needed to be accountable if I was going to start this new journey, because it wasn’t going to be easy, and in anticipation of those difficult days, those days when I could easily slide back to my old ways and old excuses, being accountable was going to be my last line of defense from a slip or slide back down to where I had come from. I had to change all of my thinking and create new habits, positive ones, that were going to set a foundation to my new life. I also had to stop thinking everything was all or nothing, I had learn that it was OK to mess up and to start again that instant, not using a mistake to set me back all the way to the beginning. In doing so, I learned that those setbacks where actually part of the growing process, and it was within those setbacks that I learned the most, especially when I didn’t let those setbacks set me back.
We are not meant to get everything right the first time. Life is about the journey, the highs, the lows, the times we fall and get back up. We only hurt ourselves when we make excuses and stop ourselves on our path, or run back to the old one that doesn’t serve us. The perfect time to start, the perfect time to get back up, the perfect time to make that change is right now. And if it didn’t happen just then, then the perfect time is right now, or now….or even now. You can always start, at any time, there is no perfect time, or magical time when starting will somehow just work, it’s up to you to do the work and continue doing the work to make it work. That life you want, those goals, those dreams, they’re all out there waiting for you, you just have to start, right now. SLAY on!
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to wait for the perfect time, day or place to start making the changes you want to make? How many times do you stop, or slide back, because you think you’ve messed up and you revert back to your old ways, making a commitment to try again tomorrow, or next week or month, when you can just consider that slip as just that, a slip, and continue on your journey. How does starting over set you back? How does it make you feel? How do you think you’ll feel if you just continue on after a setback, acknowledging what you did, what you’ve learned from it, and just continue on our journey instead of falling all the way back? Do you use your setbacks to punish yourself? If yes, why? What part of you wants yourself to fail or to mistreat yourself because you didn’t do something up to the standards you set? SLAYER, we are meant to fall, and we are meant to learn from those falls, it’s up to you to get back up, but if you decide to, you will stand up with more strength, you will stand up a little taller, you will remember the next time not to stumble where you have and learn to walk on a path that honors and celebrates who you are, even if you’ve fallen many times on that same path. Keep walking SLAYER, dust yourself off and continue on your path, not tomorrow, not later, not next week or month, right now.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
State Of Slay™ 