Watch Out for This Potential Pitfall When Starting a New Chapter

Whenever we start a new chapter or reinvention in our life, there’s a tendency to want to completely change everything all at the same time. 

We get excited about the vision we’ve created for how we want this new chapter to look.

We start planning all the things that align with that vision.

We come up with a list of habits we’re going to adopt.

We map out the perfect schedule that makes time for all those habits.

We prepare our environment to fit into that schedule.

We work out how long we’re going to meditate, what kind of workouts we’re going to do, what groceries we need to buy to support our new meal plan, what time we’re going to go to bed and what we’re going to do on the weekends.

And then, we try to live into it overnight.

Guilt. As. Charged.

As sexy as it looks on paper, this approach rarely works.

See, while none of the actions mentioned above are bad ideas, it’s thinking we can overhaul everything at once that sets us up for failure.

In her brilliant book Loving What Is, Byron Katie says: “When I argue with reality, I lose. But only 100% of the time.”

Ain’t that the truth…

Instead, a far better strategy is to focus on the 80/20 of the change you want to make.

More specifically, ask yourself:

“What is the one thing I can do that would make everything else easier?”

For me personally, it’s writing (business) and sleep (personal).

If I focus on writing each day, it keeps me visible and fresh in my potential clients’ minds, it generates content for me to share across all platforms, it helps me to articulate my thoughts, it helps me to share my ideas with the world, it builds my personal brand, it builds my intellectual property, it starts conversations, it flexes my muscles for writing my book, and so much more. All from that one task.

And in my personal life, if I really dial in my sleep game, it gives me more energy to show up fully each day, keeps my mood regulated, makes the tougher decisions easier to make, increases my focus and productivity, restores my body, gets me more present during family time, makes me more likely to hit my workouts, etc.

The bottom line is this:

Focus on your one thing until it becomes automatic, do the same with the next one thing, and know that it doesn’t all need to happen overnight.

Yes, it’s going to feel like you’re being lazy only focusing on one or two things rather than all the stuff you ‘could be’ doing, but trust me…

By focusing on fewer things, the quality with which you do those things will increase dramatically. 

And when that happens, you’ll find all the other things tend to take care of themselves.