“Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!”
Whether or not you had small children when FINDING NEMO was released, or whether you’re a kid at heart and saw the movie without taking kids with you, you’ve probably heard Dory’s admonition to just keep swimming. Today, I want to talk about persistence, and that line just keeps swimming through my brain.
I named my coaching practice the way I did for a reason. Make One Change is a valid, positive, and, most importantly, sustainable concept that anyone can do for as long as it takes to make a valid, positive, sustainable change in their life. The thing that comes most immediately to mind for me is cross stitching. As of today, my stitching streak is 575 days. That’s a lot. That is a LOT of time making sure, even for a few minutes each day, that I have done something on one of my many cross stitch projects.
How does that relate to life in general?
Just. Keep. Swimming.
Persistence pays off. It seems, sometimes, as if we keep moving and moving and moving and we don’t get anywhere. There may be an epiphany, a moment in which everything we’ve been moving toward is suddenly right there, right in front of us, ready to be dealt with. There may be a gradual realization that, without noticing, we are where we want or need to be.
So how do you start?
Pick one thing. It can be a critical thing, like paying bills on time so services don’t get cut off and you don’t pay late fees. It can be a soul-nurturing thing, like my cross stitching daily. It can be one thing of whatever-it-is that is going to make a critical difference in your life when you look back and you realize that slowly but surely you worked on it every day, or every week, or whatever it takes to make that thing a regular thing in your life.
Keep track and celebrate milestones. I keep a note in my phone and every single day I cross stitch, I make an update in my phone. Neurotic? Maybe! Ha! Here’s the thing, though. It keeps me organized and it keeps me honest. I do the same thing about whether I’ve had potato chips. I loooooooooooooove potato chips, but honestly? They’re not a healthy food. And I was eating them way too much. And I wanted them gone from my daily diet. From January 19, 2019, through May 16, 2019, I was successful. It was a day-by-day thing, and I was persistent. On May 17th I made a deliberate, conscious decision to have a small portion of kettle chips at a party, and on May 18th, I was happy to start up again my streak of not having potato chips. I felt successful, because I’d been persistent. Saying no to something that had been a regular snack, whether I was happy, sad, mad, stressed, celebrating, or whatever-the-case-may-be, I had excuses to have potato chips. Until I didn’t any more. Until it was a choice to have them, and then it was a happy choice to go back to skipping them. That is a great feeling! There are other things about which I’m persistent, and I’m working on picking one thing to focus on at a time. The most important thing is to focus on the positives and just keep going.
When I think about my cross stitching streak, I don’t think about whether I’ve spent five minutes or five hours on it on a daily basis. I think about whether I have DONE my cross stitching today. It’s about following through on that positive intention to get something done on one of my multiple projects. I don’t think about whether I’m sitting on the sofa, relaxing and watching TV while I stitch, or sitting in the car en route to wherever. I’ve just done the stitching. (Side note: just as I always have a book with me, I try always to have a small cross stitch project with me!)
What about you? What is one thing that if you said to yourself, “Today is the day I start this and I’m going to do this at least a little bit every day,” you’d feel better?
Cheers! Here’s to your health!
p.s. That thumbnail pic? That’s proof of persistence…because I was cross stitching in the car! :)