In today's society, we have been conditioned that bigger is always better.
We have to get the biggest vehicles, to carry the most cargo. We have to read the biggest books, to get the most information. We get served the biggest portions, to get the best value for our dollar.
Even when it comes to our habits, a lot of people have that "all or nothing" mentality.
Starting a new diet means turfing all the junk food from the house. A new exercise routine means a whole new wardrobe and diving in head first.
The problem with "big" is there is always a cost to it.
The bigger the vehicle, the more you are going to pay for fuel. The bigger the food portion, the harder it is going to be to lose weight. The bigger the change in habit, the less likely it is to remain a lasting change.
Believe it or not, the little things matter as much as the big things, if not even more so.
Someone who is not a morning person will not last long if they suddenly decide to start getting up at 4 a.m. That's an example of a drastic habit shift, that will not likely stick unless someone has incredible internal or external motivation to do so. Without that motivation, it's quite easy to see 4 a.m. turning back into 5 a.m., to 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. or later.
I have tried to be more of a morning person for quite a while, trying to get myself into a routine of getting up around 6 a.m. every morning. Here's the thing: I have found that between my lifestyle and my circadian rhythm, that just doesn't work. Shifting my wake-up time to between 6:45 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., and I wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Little changes matter.
It would be easy to let myself sleep in even later; I don't start work until 9 a.m., and I work from home unless I am on the road covering something, but I have found the motivation I need to still get myself out of bed. I usually spend over an hour every morning working on my university courses. Again, a small habit that is helping me develop long-term positive consequences.
One thing I will say about these changes is that they take time to pay off.
I talk with people online and in person, and I find that they, myself included, start losing motivation when the weight doesn't start melting after working out for a few days.
This leads to frustration, and the changes ultimately end up not sticking.
However, it's in the daily grind where the magic happens. While nothing visible will be perceptible at first, in short order, you will find yourself feeling differently. Sticking with a workout routine, you'll find that your shirt and pants maybe fit a bit better. You will have people commenting that you have lost weight, though you don't see it yourself. The weights you lift will get easier and easier until you have to increase what you lift to get the same effort as when you started. It's all progress.
But this is a gradual process, and one I went through with my mental health as well.
In 2016, when I was still deeply in the grips of post-traumatic stress disorder, I attended a three-month intensive treatment program in Edmonton which taught cognitive behavioural therapy. As I went through the program, I thought I was wasting my time, because I was on the struggle-bus, mentally anyway.
I just did not feel that I was grasping the material. Everything was a huge effort. I felt that I was beyond help.
However, around two months into the program, I noticed a shift. Some of the skills that we had been taught, I caught myself doing them without conscious thought.
That experience alone taught me the power of the grind. While I still worked to finish that program and then participated in another once-a-week program for just about another year, that experience was one of several turning points for me, and it's an experience I continue to lean on.
After going heavy during the spring and early part of the summer, life got away from me and I fell off my workouts in August. Over the last month, I've been getting back into my fitness routine, and I am to the point where I am looking forward to my daily sweat sessions.
While the changes I have made are not drastic, they are there, and I am definitely feeling better for them.
The thing is, even after my setback over the summer and the early fall, when I did back into things, I didn't jump right in; I started small, easing my way back in, and in short order, I am back and pushing harder than I was before I left. And, it doesn't feel unsustainable because I kept increasing incrementally.
Despite what society has told us, we don't have to "go big, or go home" in everything we do. Small things repeated daily, the daily grind, will carry us even further and last even longer than the big changes.
-Kevin Sabo is the editor of the Stettler Independent and a journalist for Black Press Media.
