Steady wins the life

I sat in my daughter’s room talking last night, and the wind interrupted us: rattling the windows, howling through the trees, insisting that we talk about it. This morning I watched the trees with their upper branches waving wildly, the heavy trunks swaying slightly, solid. The tree trunks cracked in the bitter cold. There were forty-mile-an-hour winds, but those trunks weren’t going anywhere. The wind can moan or howl or whine; the trees just go on growing.  

I marveled again at how much the natural world has to show us about how to live. A tree knows what it’s supposed to do. It keeps on living, inching farther toward the light, come what may.

We humans can only hope for such clear direction.

We can set a course, make a goal, create a plan, and we may feel very dedicated to our plan. But a strong wind often comes and blows us off course. Sometimes the wind can tickle our noses and we are inclined to follow.

A friend asks us out to eat, and we blow our intention to go home, save money, and eat healthy food.  Or, despite our best plan to finish a project by morning, we find ourselves sucked into the computer screen and two hours later we’re too tired to do much except go to sleep and try again tomorrow.

We revert to our habits, the very habits that we had decided—at least once—weren’t giving us the life we want. The life we want is the one in which we are doing what we’re meant to do. One in which we are truly giving our gifts to the world. Not only because it makes us feel better. But also because it is our human impulse, our very essence.

A tree may not need discipline to keep doing what it’s meant to do, but we sure do. I thought today that discipline is wanting one thing more than another. As in, I want my children to be healthy, so I feed them. I never forget to feed them. I’m not trying to be funny; I could forget to feed them. But I don’t. Of course, I have an added and immediate incentive for feeding them. If I don’t, they turn into trolls, just like their mother does when she's hungry. Still, there are some things that I am incredibly disciplined about. Things that are important to me.

We may want to save money, or lose weight, or write a book, or quit our jobs, but we have to want it enough to change something else. We have to want it enough to do what it takes to get it.

I’ve had a lot of practice at this now. I quit drinking when I was a young woman, I quit smoking, I quit eating cheap candy. I am the queen of the quit. Once you tackle one area that requires discipline, it’s easier to tackle others. You know you can do it, for one thing. Our brains say something like “Oh, I remember how this retraining thing works. Here we go again.”

But even with a lot of experience, changing my behavior in some areas has been a huge challenge. This year, I’m going to be more on time. I’m not ever horribly late, I just seem to always be rushed at the last minute. I know I can do this better. And I know it won’t be easy. Recent research says that it takes an average of sixty-six days to adopt a new habit.[i]

Still, there are lots of ways to find the discipline. We can take small steps towards our goal. We can just decide to do something differently and find the support to keep deciding to do it differently. Meditating on a goal is key for me. Also, it helps to limit the time I spend considering my old habit. Instead, I spend a lot of time focusing on what I want. I write about it, I leave myself notes on my desk, I imagine my world with this new habit in place. And I keep asking myself “Am I spending my energy where it matters most?” What is my version of being a tree? How do I keep focused on moving ahead, standing strong through all the distractions and temptations and old ways that some part of me wants to indulge in? How do I sway enough to accommodate the wind, the cold, and the people who come and carve their initials into me? And keep growing. More than anything, I try to be gentle and kind about the whole thing. I am entirely human, and I have plans to stay that way.  We have to learn to be patient. Steadily, gently, we can grow to do what we are meant to do.

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[i]  http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php