We often start the year setting resolutions, planning on turning our dreams into reality and yet once the initial enthusiasm has passed, we find that we’ve stalled. The dreams are still there but we realise that achieving our dreams means breaking away from habits and stepping outside our comfort zone… and that’s where it can get difficult.
Making changes is not always easy. Whether we like it or not, we tend to become rooted in our habits, especially our bad ones, and then to break these habits seems like an insurmountable hurdle. Habits give us something to hold on to, to cling to, a tiny scrap of certainty although we examine these habits more closely, it seems that they are based on fear and a lack of inclination to move on.
I often think of a illustration I saw with the words ‘what would you start if you knew that you couldn’t fail?’ Well.. what would we start if we had the faith that we would succeed?
So how to break away from our bad habits and find the courage to step into the unknown? Is it to be a tentative toe dipped into the water? Or a big leap into the deep end?
Sometimes it can help to identify a small milestone, just a simple change that will set the ball rolling..
For me yoga has been awesome in showing what can be achieved if you dare to try.. when I look back, I can see the changes that patience and just challenging myself – somedays more, somedays less – can bring.
Every time I manage to overcome my nausea and dizziness to lean back into camel, I feel a sense of achievement, and a sense of pride as I realise that it was my fear to let loose that held me back.
I realised at a certain point that there was no real physical reason that I could never lean back. It had a lot more to do with neglecting my breathing and giving in to the sensation of leaning back and looking at the world upside down for a moment.
And when you look at the world upside down, everything looks a bit different… and then who knows what you will see?