De·ci·sion
The act or process of deciding.
Seems so simple.
Yet, a lot of us seem to struggle with making decisions, especially when it will require self-change. Familiarity feels safe and the unknown is fear evoking, and changing ourselves means heading into the unknown. Not only that, it means heading into the unknown and away from who we believe we are. At least consciously it is this way, because change is always happening to us and no matter what we believe about who we think we are, the reality is never fully aligned.
But perhaps there is another reason that increases the difficulty of making a decision embedded in the word itself and the modern world makes it even harder. We are evolved to look to maximise our opportunity and keep options open, but making a decision is the antithesis of that and it literally means to "cut off" alternatives. When we make a decision, we are closing doors.
Each one made comes with a cost.
But, only when we actually change our behaviours to support our decisions, which is definitely the area where most of us fail once decided, because no matter what we say we want or what we say we will do, if what we actually do doesn't change in order take us there, we will keep on acting as if no decision was made.
I will eat healthily, but am I?
I will study for the test, but am I?
I will manage my emotions, but am I?
I will exercise, but am I?
I will....
But am I?
If I am not , if you are not, we are not.
Is making a decision to change who we are so hard because we are both risk "losing ourselves" and we are taking other options to be something else off the table? The sense of losing ourselves to a change in behaviour is of course irrational because for better or worse, we are always ourselves. When we act well or poorly, when we are healthy or ill, when we are at our the best or worst, we can't escape who "I" is. But through making decisions, we are able to affect who I is right now and what our capabilities and potential will be in the next moment.
Why do we fight change?
External change versus Internal change
We all fight against external change in some way, because of that sense of familiar and the attachment to our identity. We want to keep traditions that make us feel connected, even when they aren't working for us and our body and brain (both looking for the easiest path) will keep influencing our behaviours so it can conserve energy. It will fight to keep us experiencing what we are experiencing, because that is what costs it the least energy. Which is quite a realisation, considering that our lives could be incredibly difficult and falling apart, and our identity and body is fighting to keep us in exactly that position, which inevitably leads to conditions getting increasingly worse.
Rinse and repeat.
But we also fight internal change for the same reason, because it is familiar and we identify with what we do and what we have done. Even when at the surface conscious level we want to be able to have a particular result, we will often keep on acting as we have done earlier, which obviously didn't get us to that result. But, because we have "made the decision" in our head, we feel like we must be following through with our body and when we don't get the results we are after, it is because it was the wrong thing, or what we "tried" doesn't work.
But we never did it.
Our "try" wasn't honest and committed, which means it is always doomed to fail as we fall into our default behaviours that have already proven failures. Doing more of what doesn't work is unlikely to break through the barrier of failure and into success, is it?
Cut it off.
So, if I want to make a change for a specific result, then I am going to have to cut off my options of behaviour that get in the way of that result. For instance, let's say I want to get a six-pack stomach (which I have never quite got), then doing more of what I am doing now or have done isn't going to help. What I would have to do is change my behaviour and in this case, it would be 95% diet related. I exercise often and hard enough and have the muscles there, but my diet gets in the way. But for me at least, willpower alone is not going to work, because I don't have the energy to maintain it. The only way I can effectively affect my diet, is to change the availability of food, cutting off access to everything that doesn't help me accomplish the end goal.
Now, I don't care much about having six-pack abs, but it is the same for anything that I might care about too. I have to get comfortable removing options that are familiar, but keep me the same, that hold me back from any kind of accomplishment.
Some people believe we should be happy with ourselves as we are, and there is truth to this in the moment. But, it has become an excuse to stay the same, a choice to avoid the discomfort of the unknown, a way to stay safe. Change is never safe, because the results are never guaranteed and the unfamiliar is always going to be uncomfortable - until we are familiar with it. It doesn't matter what the "it" is, but in order to become familiar with something, we have to repeat and repeat it until we know it, until it becomes part of our regular experience. It doesn't matter what it is, if we want a particular experience, we must be that experience. In might not feel viable in the early stages, but the more we repeat, the more comfortable it becomes and the more we attach who we are to it.
Who we are is not static.
We are always ourselves, but we are not always the same. We are ever-changing in an environment that is also ever-changing, and in order to meet our needs effectively, we need to firstly know what we need, and then change what we are doing in order to meet them.
Do we know what we need?
I had a discussion with my wife after I watched her work out at the gym today, and realised that she is not doing the right exercises in the right way to meet her goals. It is not that what she is doing is bad, but it will not get her the results she wants. What she needs to do is change. Yet, when I brought this up, she doubled-down on what she is doing, even though she isn't getting the results from it and is frustrated. It is her own fault, as it is familiar and is comfortable for her - even though she knows it doesn't work and she complains about not getting the results she is after.
For months (and years) she has resisted working out with me, because it is not the way She wants to workout. That is fine, but after 30 years of working out regularly, it is only in the last half-year or so that I have made some pretty decent gains. I am probably (in some respects) in the best shape of my life so far, because I have fundamentally changed the way I exercise. I am overall stronger and look stronger also, shifting the way my body feels daily. I may never be super fit, but I am improving consistently.
And it still feels unfamiliar.
When I do a workout, it still feels strange not to do certain things and I guess it is a bit like going to a terrace in the summer with a glass of wine, and not smoking. It took me a long time to shake the sense that something was missing after I quit smoking, but through repetition of not doing it, not doing it became the familiar. If I were to pick up a cigarette today, it would very quickly feel natural and familiar again. The smoker is still there, but so too is the non-smoker.
That is the same with pretty much all of the things we do and identify with. The excuse of "this is the way I am" doesn't hold up under testing, because the way we are through the lens of what we do, can change massively with conditioning. The laziest person can become familiar with a strong work ethic. The most introverted person can become familiar with social interaction. The saddest person can become familiar with joy.
But in order to do so, a person needs to change what they believe about themselves, that they are the way they are and that is it. It is not it. The "this is the way I am" attitude is a a decision made to stay the same, to stay safe. It is cutting off options of positive change in favour of negative same.
The wrong decision for growth.
Make a new cut.
Taraz
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Our decision in life will either make us it mar us. Decision is very important and whatever we decide at a particularly point in time will certainly go a long way in shaping who will become and what will become eventually. Poor decision will surely lead to poor result. Although some poor decision at times might yield a good end but not at all time. At time, we just make decision based on how we feel at a point in time which may not be the right choice to make.
I think we also make decisions on what we think we need at a particular time, without considering if that is the case, or if it will change our future. A person might steal for survival to feed themselves, but at what point are they stealing just because they have become a thief?
Hmm, this is deep, at some point we all have made decision what we would have thought it never happen but the mind that have a second thought of not repeating the same action again should be guild against.
Change is difficult but important. I think learning primes us towards this making us adaptable 🙂
Adaptability seems lost these days. Perhaps it is because we have been told to stick to what we believe - even when we don't act on what we say we believe.
We can tell ourselves that we want to eat healthier, exercise more or learn something new, but if we keep the same habits and options available, we will probably end up doing the same things. As I do nowadays 😄
And me, most of the time. I am moving more.
I also watch what I eat, and I see a lot of junk :D
Siempre dar el primer paso al cambio va a ser difícil por el miedo a lo desconocido y a salir de nuestra zona de confort, y es normal, pienso que debemos pensar en todas las cosas maravillosas que nos estamos perdiendo y atrevernos, y si al final las cosas no van como esperábamos pues seguimos cambiando hasta encontrar el lugar donde seamos felices
I don't speak Spanish.
What did you change about your workouts that actually gave you better results?
And change is the hardest thing to do... Especially when we believe in certain things (which might not be true).
J thinks I'm indecisive, I have tried and failed to explain to him that I'm not indecisive, I just try to make the most optimal/efficient decisions and just stall extremely easily because most things aren't clear cut.
Yay for making all the gains! Were you not varying it up before either?
This is the part that gets me every time, the follow-through! I know I can do it. I've actually gotten that 6pack once, when I was fully motivated to control my diet along with workouts 3-4 times weekly. I was lifting heavy for the first time in my life as a response to my second divorce. I was loosely counting my calories and macros to make sure I was hitting my mark without extra calories and extra junk in my system.
I pretty much completely cut sugar out of my diet and participated in CrossFit HIIT workouts with a familiar group of people every morning at 6am before school. I truly was in the best shape of my life. In 6 weeks, I had managed to lose over 6% body fat from 18% to 12%, which beat my goal by a full % (I was going for a 5% drop over 6 weeks to hit my workout target).
But after 8 weeks of success, I tweaked my back doing a deadline and lost all my momentum. I couldn't work out for 4 weeks while I let my back heal, and in that time I wasn't able to sustain my healthy diet anymore. I fell back into old habits and I lost the gains I had made. In fact, I've never been able to get back to that level of fitness. I miss the teamwork of familiar faces in morning classes. I miss the community of people sharing healthy recipes and tricks to hit those nutrition macros without eating unhealthy food.
And now that I'm back home in New York City, what is standing in my way now, more than anything else, is the financial burden to get back to what made me so successful. Those CrossFit sessions I was paying for in Arizona got 3x as expensive in Brooklyn. Plus with all the tasty restaurants and delicacies in the city, it is hard to stick to a clean, macro-based diet, when going out to ear with my partner or with my friends.
Sure, change is hard. But so is the consistency to keep up with new habits when the going gets tough. When only you can sustain your new habits and you are cut off from your supportive community. As much as I want to plan healthy meals, meal prep on the weekends to set myself up for success, I haven't followed through in the three years I've been teaching in Brooklyn. But I can tell my body is getting a bit restless. It needs to workout. It needs to cut the sugar and refined/processed foods. It needs to get back to that machine that was in the best shape of his life when I was near my lowest point after my second divorce. I just don't want to have to hit bottom to be motivated to change. Still looking for that spark...
Thanks