Growth Is Slow and Steady

Audio By Carbonatix

For most of us, when we decide to make a change in our lives, we want the full change to happen very quickly. Immediately might be a more accurate word. If we decide we want to change our routine in a better or healthier direction, we usually start out strong for a week or two. Our willpower can lead to a change…for a little while. But as time goes by, it’s likely that we will end up reverting back to our original routine. And we all know what comes next—we get discouraged and we probably end up abandoning our effort to make this big change. 

It’s pretty normal to have this experience when we approach change like it’s an all-or-nothing thing. It’s hard to go from being a couch potato one week to being at the gym a couple hours every day the next week. It’s hard to go from being self-centered one week to being completely others-focused the next week. But my point is not that change is impossible; it’s that drastic, immediate change is not realistic and is often not long-lasting. 

Instead of focusing on the kind of drastic and immediate change that we fantasize about, it’s much more helpful to approach change in a realistic way. And that means working to make change in ways that are slow, gradual, and lasting. We aren’t likely to stick with changes that require us to completely change our thought process and our deeply entrenched routines overnight. But we are likely to stick with changes that grow slowly and develop over time.

As you can imagine, as much as I want to see people making positive changes when it comes to their physical or financial health, I am much more interested in encouraging people to make changes in the areas of emotional and relational health. And the way to make change last in those arenas is the same—slow and steady wins the race. 

If you’re working to improve your marriage and family life, you shouldn’t be thinking that you’ll go from your current approach of being a little too preoccupied to being the perfectly attentive spouse and parent. If that’s the goal, you’ll get discouraged the first time you fall short of it. Instead, a good starting point is to commit to being aware of how you’re engaging with your loved ones. When you start simply working on awareness, it gives you the freedom to have realistic expectations. 

If you’re wanting to make changes on your emotional reactivity, starting small is the way forward there too. It’s not realistic to go from being somebody who blows up and loses their temper to being a completely calm and collected person overnight. But you can make changes in this arena that will be smaller and more sustainable as well. You can start by being more aware of your emotional state as conversations develop. Pay attention to the rising urge inside of you to interrupt or to explode. As you do this over time, you’ll develop more of an ability to sit with those feelings without reacting and turning your internal discomfort into external conflict. 

No matter how small a change you’re looking to make, it helps when you’re not expecting to become a different person overnight. It makes a big difference when you’re just committed to being more aware of yourself and how you’re showing up for the people you care about. That’s a small and doable change. And those kinds of changes have a much better chance of “sticking,” which helps you to win more often at home.