I recently completed a workshop here on Pender Island of prepping goals of any kind for the New Year. I bored my ladies to tears over the Transtheoretical model. I felt that the knowledge of understanding how we create change in our lives would help my ladies understand the process of changing, better. Knowledge is power, right?
We then discussed how relapsing has to happen between the stages of change in order for the change to actually start to cement. Sounds promising, right? How is it that we need to fail? See our failures. Then take those steps and turn them into the building blocks on which we grow?
To me, this is something I am really starting to understand only now. Even as a mother of four, I must have felt myself changing along the way. I reflect back often especially to when I was 23 at home with 3 littles under 4 and think-I had to be changing, right? I was never so aware until just recently how much I was closed off to the thought of change as it felt like it was the only thing in my grasp of control. I was loving my children and providing a great happy home for them and husband but something was missing in me.
In hindsight I see, I was afraid of failing.
I was afraid if I failed the others around me would collapse or fall into chaotic mess and that it would be just that. Messy. Something changed though when I started processing that failing was making me grow. I could learn and develop and experience anything if I at least tried it, being ready to fail if that was the way it was going to be.
I started going to the gym religiously. That was the change. I began to feel that my life was chaotic (I was also borderline ppd). Being at the gym gave me a sense of control and freedom. Funny, those two complete opposite words came out in that sentence. Control AND freedom. I was free from the slavery of motherdom, housewifedom, boredom. I could control my effort in whatever class or exercise(s) I was participating in. And I started to fail. I hurt. I was sore. I battled quitting. I was feeling unsuccessful. I was uncomfortable. I couldn't control. I was failing.
I would get discouraged at progress because I didn't see what I expected to see right away. This is life's little lesson reminding you never to expect anything but change, especially if you are expecting it a certain way. Be it that endorphin rush or stress release of being physical, I plugged on. Three months later I was starting to get noticed at all my efforts and began realizing that that 'failing' (pain, mental anguish to push through, fatigue, etc) was creating change. I was changing.
Mostly on the outside. I was building strength, I was developing agility, speed and power. But one truly knows with fitness, a lot more change happens biologically and chemically inside then in what you SEE outside. I was also building determination, hard work and pride. Things I felt I had lost during my years out of the work force and away from my peers.
Presently, I am starting to understand more of how we grow. The growth we do on the outside we typically feel stops after puberty with some aging changes as life proceeds. You can still grow yourself in the gym for whatever physical health goals it is you have. That being said, extending myself through failure in the gym all these years has translated more then just physical development. I have tools that I can now use for growth in other areas of my life, now knowing I must get through the failures to see the changes in which I seek.
I am constantly questing to become a better mother, friend, wife and human being. I have my own goals I have set (using my knowledge of how change is made) for 2014. Through messing up and making things messy on my journey to achieve them, I know the messier it gets the closer I'll get to them.
SET THOSE GOALS. PLAN FOR OBSTACLES. MESS UP. FAIL. GROW!
We then discussed how relapsing has to happen between the stages of change in order for the change to actually start to cement. Sounds promising, right? How is it that we need to fail? See our failures. Then take those steps and turn them into the building blocks on which we grow?
To me, this is something I am really starting to understand only now. Even as a mother of four, I must have felt myself changing along the way. I reflect back often especially to when I was 23 at home with 3 littles under 4 and think-I had to be changing, right? I was never so aware until just recently how much I was closed off to the thought of change as it felt like it was the only thing in my grasp of control. I was loving my children and providing a great happy home for them and husband but something was missing in me.
In hindsight I see, I was afraid of failing.
I was afraid if I failed the others around me would collapse or fall into chaotic mess and that it would be just that. Messy. Something changed though when I started processing that failing was making me grow. I could learn and develop and experience anything if I at least tried it, being ready to fail if that was the way it was going to be.
I started going to the gym religiously. That was the change. I began to feel that my life was chaotic (I was also borderline ppd). Being at the gym gave me a sense of control and freedom. Funny, those two complete opposite words came out in that sentence. Control AND freedom. I was free from the slavery of motherdom, housewifedom, boredom. I could control my effort in whatever class or exercise(s) I was participating in. And I started to fail. I hurt. I was sore. I battled quitting. I was feeling unsuccessful. I was uncomfortable. I couldn't control. I was failing.
I would get discouraged at progress because I didn't see what I expected to see right away. This is life's little lesson reminding you never to expect anything but change, especially if you are expecting it a certain way. Be it that endorphin rush or stress release of being physical, I plugged on. Three months later I was starting to get noticed at all my efforts and began realizing that that 'failing' (pain, mental anguish to push through, fatigue, etc) was creating change. I was changing.
Mostly on the outside. I was building strength, I was developing agility, speed and power. But one truly knows with fitness, a lot more change happens biologically and chemically inside then in what you SEE outside. I was also building determination, hard work and pride. Things I felt I had lost during my years out of the work force and away from my peers.
Presently, I am starting to understand more of how we grow. The growth we do on the outside we typically feel stops after puberty with some aging changes as life proceeds. You can still grow yourself in the gym for whatever physical health goals it is you have. That being said, extending myself through failure in the gym all these years has translated more then just physical development. I have tools that I can now use for growth in other areas of my life, now knowing I must get through the failures to see the changes in which I seek.
I am constantly questing to become a better mother, friend, wife and human being. I have my own goals I have set (using my knowledge of how change is made) for 2014. Through messing up and making things messy on my journey to achieve them, I know the messier it gets the closer I'll get to them.
SET THOSE GOALS. PLAN FOR OBSTACLES. MESS UP. FAIL. GROW!
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