Let’s say you’ve finally found the way to move forward. You get motivated to change old behaviors and to create new ones. Whether you got a professional support or had an epiphany, the bottom line is that you are doing better and you feel that way too.
It doesn’t matter what area of your life you’re thinking about. Maybe you weren’t being consistent with exercise or you didn’t eat healthy for a while. So you hired a trainer or you got into a support group.
Maybe you decided to be more loving and compassionate in your relationships and it’s been working
But then it happens: something throws you out of balance and you fall back into your old behaviors. You don’t like it. You don’t like yourself. You spiral down and before you know it you’re feeling guilty and beating yourself up.
What’s going on?
Just when you’re about to step into your greatness, your old baggage (your fear, old beliefs, negative thinking) wakes up and tries to reclaim control one last time. After all, for a long time, this baggage was your boss, and it sees that it’s about to be replaced!
What do you do?
Accept it. Accept that you can’t wipe out your negative patterns all at once. Sometimes, your old baggage will get to speak too, and that’s fine.
Use the 50% rule and aim to be successful 50% of the time. Once you’ve mastered that, aim for 60% success. Then 70% success. Will you get to 100%? Probably not. Why? Because you’re human. But even living a better life for? 50% of the time is way better than 10% of the time!
If you aim for perfection all the time, you set yourself up to fail.
The Bottom Line: It is unrealistic to expect yourself to be successful all the time at living the kind of life you want to live.
Ask: How can I be loving and gentle with myself?
Affirm: I improve every day, I aim for 50%? success.