self-driven change is hard: be forgiving of yourself

i had this thought yesterday while writing some specific tips to help make personal systems change.

change is hard. pretty much always. changing yourself might be one of the hardest types of change there is. and in every change process i’ve ever been a part of or observed, there has always been some amount of failure.

last year i committed to a personal meditation practice. 10 minutes a day. that’s all i wanted to do. when i looked back at my 2015 data (which i was collecting through reporter at the time), i had meditated about 250 days. so there were clearly days that i didn’t keep my own promise.

but whenever i would miss a day, it was really important to be forgiving to myself and then keep trying. there are lots of reasons for being forgiving to yourself, most of which i think are good. the reason i’m forgiving to myself is because i know that it takes time to change habits. but i’ve also seen that if i just keep trying, the change eventually does stick. this year (2016), not only have i missed just two days of morning meditation, but i’ve also added on a morning writing practice. my success rate with the writing (107/246) is lower than the meditation (244/246), but i know that if i keep it up, next year my stats will improve.

so yeah. failure is a part of the process. be forgiving of yourself. keep pushing. it’ll happen.

ps -  i think the reason i’m so passionate about personal change is that i really believe that that’s where the revolution starts. i’m constantly seeking ways to change myself and now i’m increasingly interested in supporting others to do the same.