The Super Secret Magical Way to Improve Your Life
Truly, how many times have you fallen for an ad that promised some swift and dramatic transformation, even if it seemed too good to be true? We all want that magic bullet that’s going to suddenly make things better, even if we think we’re smarter than that.
It’s totally natural to think there’s going to be some book or some pill or some coach who is going to have the answers you’ve been looking for, but in truth, we all know it doesn’t exist. Yes, you might find resources or support that help you move the needle farther than you could on your own, but there’s no one thing that’s going to change everything.
We want relief, we want to feel like we’re making progress, and we want to see results. And the painful truth is that most of the time, the relief is infinitesimal, the progress is slow as molasses on a cold day, and the results take months or years to become noticeable.
And that sucks. I know. But you have to keep reminding yourself that small steps add up. It’s a cliche for a reason: it’s true. The little things you do every day that hardly feel like anything are going to accumulate and compound over a long period of time until they become the big magical transformation you’ve been looking for.
And yes, that means you have to show up for yourself every day and do the monotonous, tedious little things that get old and boring and trick you into thinking they’re not really all that important because they feel easy or familiar or exactly like what you did yesterday.
The work is in committing to a routine.
And this, friends, is the reason that so many of us give up, fall off the wagon, and don’t follow through on our goddamned resolutions: we think self-improvement should feel dramatic and exciting, so we completely lose focus when it’s actually repetitive and tiresome.
I recently signed up for a fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association that required me to bike 200 miles in two months. That’s really not a lot – it’s 3-6 miles every day. That’s a 10 or 20 minute ride for me. Seems so easy, right? But the thing I quickly realized is that it’s super hard to do something EVERY day, even if it’s not going to take long or be particularly hard. I had to get on that bike every damn day, and it quickly became a chore. But I knew I didn’t have a choice, so I just kept doing it, even when it wasn’t fun or exciting anymore. And eventually, those little rides added up and I got to 200 miles. Tedious as shit, but done.
It’s not that what we need to do is hard; it’s that our human brains get bored with the daily effort and start looking for something more exciting. And that’s when that short daily walk starts to feel pointless, or that class you’ve been taking at the gym loses its luster, or that 20 minutes of journaling you committed to every morning just randomly stops getting done.
The hard work isn’t about doing hard work. It’s about sticking with the plan, even when it feels like nothing is happening, you’re not making progress, or you’d rather gouge your left eye out than walk that same route around the block again.
Now is the time to make the tiny changes in your life that are going to pay off in 6 months or a year or 5 years. Maybe you want to be the kind of person who exercises regularly, or there’s a book you’ve been trying to write for years, or you really want to save for a house. Today’s the day to get started, and all the days after today are continuous opportunities to make progress.
You open a savings account today, and put $5 in it every day for the next 5 years, and you’ve got your down payment. It’s not hard to open the account or sacrifice the $5, but it will be hard to continue doing it every single day for that length of time when the excitement around it wanes. That’s the hard work AND the solution.
You open a Google doc on your computer and type Chapter 1, and write 3 pages every day for the next year, and you’ve got a 1000 page book. Right now 3 pages feels easy, but in 6 months you might have to force yourself to do it when it starts to feel monotonous and pointless. That’s the hard work AND the solution.
You tie up your sneakers and go walk for 10 minutes. Suddenly, you’re exercising. To be the kind of person who always exercises, you have to do that most days of the week. Feels easy today, but doing it every day will start to feel like climbing Mt. Everest when you’re busy or tired or distracted. You’ll have to dig deep to get it done some days. That’s the hard work AND the solution to changing your life.
There’s no magic pill. There’s no mysterious solution you just haven’t found yet. It’s just a series of little things that add up over time and the progress might be so slow sometimes that it’s almost painful. Persistence is the answer. Doing the thing, every day, over and over again, no matter how boring or pointless it seems.
So, think of that one little thing that’s going to add up and transform your life, and commit to it right now. It might not feel dramatic or exciting, but it’s the only way anything’s going to change.
Love, Teddey
