“No one ever changes until the pain level gets high enough.”
I read this the other day and thought, “Ugh, that’s such a depressing, (but kind of true) statement!” Why do we do this? Why do we continue to carry things that are not healthy and do not bring us joy? Do we not deserve better? Why do we wait until we finally reach a breaking point to then and only then make a change?
Maybe it’s our consistent weight gain or a relationship that isn’t super awesome or the number of times we say “yes” to people on a daily basis. Then we get a scary diagnosis from the Dr. and have to change our eating habits or our kids are being affected by the constant fighting in our marriages and we have to do something about the toxic relationship or we physically and emotionally just Cannot. Say. Yes. To. One. More. Person. It’s when the pain level reaches “intolerable” - and it’s only then - that we are forced to change.
The irony in all of this is that when we do make those forced changes, it’s usually such a feeling of freedom and reclamation. We are then asking ourselves, “Why didn’t I do this years ago?” We don’t ever learn from our mistakes though, nor do we give ourselves enough grace in these types of situations…cue vicious cycle.
But. What if, instead of living in unhappiness and waiting until we’ve reached heartbreak to make a change, we loved ourselves forward? What if we proactively started to notice what “norms” are in our lives and then regularly spent time weeding out the negatives and replacing them with positives?
What if we caught our unhealthy eating habits early and changed our diet? What if we noticed that we’ve been arguing with our partner more than usual and sat down to talk through our challenges? What if we prioritized our time a little better in advance and were more intentional with the “yeses” that we were giving out? Do we value ourselves enough to sit and recognize the good, bad and ugly in our routines and do something about it? If we don’t, we should, because we deserve happiness. We deserve to be healthy, both physically and emotionally. Don’t wait until your pain level is unbearable to make changes in your life, love yourself forward.
Just a thought…