A lot of despair we go through is because we expect great outcomes in short periods of time. Two of our generation's biggest follies—‘expecting great outcomes’ and ‘quickly’.
The world around us does not help either. We’ve all collectively bought into the idea that fast is good and slow means bad. We’ve become an outcome-driven society that is certainly impatient with results. Certain expectations with age. Time that it takes to lose weight. Time it takes to really get good at a subject. We revere and look up to those who achieve breakthrough results in shorter periods of time. Our need for outcomes has overshadowed the beauty in the process, in the practice itself.
For this essay, I’ll keep my focus on the ‘Time’ component of the despair. And I will use ‘Change’ as an alternative to ‘Outcome’ for my own sanity.
Visible, sustained change does not happen quickly. I remember a doctor reassuring me that a cup of coffee will not lead to sustained high blood pressure. I was undergoing treatment for hypertension back then. He went on to explain that our bodies have a buffer or a baseline state and small one-off things do not result in sustained ailments. Similarly with losing or gaining weight. That one-off night of binging will not leave you a couple of Kilos heavier. Or the other way, fasting for a day or two will not result in long term weight loss.
Our personality, mindset and general behavioural changes also take time. While there are small, incremental changes happening every second, for us to notice a change takes months or even years. Not days. The next time you’re in a reflective mind space, try and think back to a couple of years. Think about the situations that troubled you, caused stress. And see how many of those situations, if they were to happen again, would trigger the same stress level. But if you reduce the time frame and replace years with weeks, you’ll probably see the same you.
That which you do more often than not, over a long enough time period, eventually becomes dominant. And effects the changes you see in your life. Be it personal, relationships or work related.
This realisation had that ‘lifting-weight-off-shoulders’ effect for me. All I had to do was increase my timelines and sustain the activity for more days than not. Instead of a day, review over longer time period. Maybe a week or a month. If I can sustain something for the majority of the days over the given time period, change would be inevitable.
So after struggling for years to build a workout habit, I approached it differently this time. Instead of planning a tightly regimented 6 day-a-week plan, I began by 4 days a week plan. I did not plan the days either. Just that at the end of the week, I should have worked out for 4 days. I found this surprisingly easy to maintain.
I applied the same approach for wanting to build a meditation practice. Instead of feeling bad for missing a session because I overslept, I’d be okay and plan to make it happen the next day. Because the my goal changed from meditating every single day without fail, to doing 20 sessions a month. As long as I was able to do 20 sessions a month, I would consider meditation a regular practice.
This intentional leeway helped me accommodate for unknowns. There were days when I was more tired than usual so I could skip the gym without feeling bad. This tiredness sometimes flowed into my next morning, waking up later than usual and need to skip the meditation practice. But without the despair. Or while trying to build a writing habit, there are days when you’ve to deal with a mental block and just not able to write. Any new journey is going to have unknowns.
Instead of beating up yourself, it makes more sense to be accommodating. It gives you room to fail, introspect and a chance to try again the next day. Just by giving yourself time and space over days, you can make big changes happen over years. This approach also creates space for serendipity. 🙂
All it takes is releasing yourself from this self-inflicted race against time. Nothing worthwhile happens quickly.
Thanks to Akanksha Mohla and Rohan for reviewing this article.
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