Day 11 - Steady

Today is about staying steady,

Finding your flow,

And realizing there is freedom in the discipline.

It's about knowing that the rocky patches are just phases and that if you can learn to maintain the calm through the storm,

It will feel like the storm passes faster.

You might not feel it or realize it all the time,

But during this 30 days,

A lot of things are shifting.

And you might find yourself moving through different emotions that you aren't used to.

So being able to remind yourself that this too shall pass can be a helpful reminder in staying steady.

I have this needle on a record analogy when talking about the process of change.

Imagine the grooves on the record are your current thoughts and habits.

Some of the grooves are deep,

Really deep.

They have been there a long time.

You know them well.

And here we are right now in this 30 days creating some new thoughts and behaviors and taking different action,

Which are also on the record,

But there is no groove yet.

So what we are doing in this process of change is that we're taking the needle from the well-worn groove and putting it on an area of the record where there is no groove yet.

So naturally,

The needle is going to slide around and eventually drop back into a nearby groove and continue to run its cycle.

When it is in these grooves,

It's familiar,

Like a well-sung song.

It's the easy path,

But it's not the aligned path.

It is an old way.

So then you must pick up the needle again,

Move it back to the baby groove over and over and over again until it holds.

This is the process of change.

Making change can be exhausting because we have to keep putting the needle in the new groove.

Each time it stays just a little bit longer,

But until it's a deep groove,

It needs your attention.

It needs you to stay steady and persistent in your commitment.

So staying steady is about realizing this is the process of consistently moving the needle back to the new groove and trying your best not to get frustrated with the different emotions that come up in the face of change,

But rather almost find it amusing that what was once your way is now finding a new groove to stay steady in.

It's time to play a new song.

This is where you may start feeling like you don't recognize who you are anymore.

Good,

Embrace that.

It's a good sign.

30 Days to Change with Lisa Mehta.