Mary Pickford said, ” Falling is not failing, unless you fail to get up.”
Change is difficult. When we make the decision to change a habit or behavior, it doesn’t feel great at first. Our brain works hard to keep us in our old patterns because it’s what feels better, safer, and more predictable.
For example, what if you wanted to change a habit of chronically hitting your snooze button in the morning? Hitting your snooze was causing you be late, frustrated, and took away time that you could focus on yourself before you start the day.
You tried it for the first time, and it didn’t feel right. You were tired, groggy, and felt even worse than when you had been hitting snooze 5 times before you got out of bed.
But you kept practicing it because you knew that ultimately breaking this habit was going to have a significant impact on the quality of your day. That little extra time in the morning gave you the time you needed to focus on yourself, to become the person you need to be to create the life you want. And although it didn’t feel great at first, after sticking with it for a few weeks, your life has drastically gotten better.
We could use hundreds of examples of habits, and ways of life people want to break (smoking/drinking, unhealthy eating, negative self-talk, inactive lifestyle, depression, etc..).
Unfortunately, a lot of people give up on their new way of life at the first sign of failing. It’s hard to see the big picture of what we can achieve if we just keep practicing. But there is something very important we have to remember when we change a habit or behavior.
When we take that first step toward the unknown, we will FALL, and although it feels like we are failing, it is very different than actually failing. And if we can push forward we will shoot back up and beyond anything we could have imagined.
Understanding The J Curve
That’s the thing about changing a previous behavior or breaking a habit; it feels worse before it gets better. If we can truly grasp this concept, we can pick ourselves up when it feels like we are failing.
To help you better understand this concept, let’s look at the J curve.
J Curve: A graph that measures performance, where a curve initially falls before steeply rising.
Let’s say that a habit or behavior we want to change is measured by the j curve.
When we start out to change, it feels like we are falling. We are falling fast, and steep. When we reach that first bend in the curve, we have three choices to make:
1.) We can choose to go back to where we started because we know that road. We know how to get there, and it doesn’t take long to get back. It’s the most familiar to us.
2.) We can choose to stay in the bend, in that rut and not move in either direction.
3.) We can choose to push forward. To stare the unknown path right in the face and move toward something different.
“Don’t look at the sudden loss of a habit, or way of life, as the end of the road; see it instead as only a bend in the road that will open up all sorts of interesting possibilities and new experiences. After all, you’ve seen the scenery on the old road for so long, and you obviously no longer like it.” – Mary Pickford
I encourage you, my friend, and myself as I write this, to keep this concept close to our hearts.
If you are taking that step, that brave and beautiful step towards changing a habit or way of life, think of it as the j curve.
At first, it’s going to feel as though you failing because you are falling. But you AREN’T! It is only failing when we choose not to get back up. It’s only failing if that bend in the curve is the end of the road.
I want us to remember these things when we are falling:
- You have to fall to get the momentum to rise higher
- Falling is taking you to the bend in the curve where dramatic change can occur
- Falling is a teacher and a guide
- On our way down it may seem like the end of the road, but it’s just a beginning of a road that we have never seen before.
Be willing to accept that you can go beyond anything you have imagined
I think that’s one of the hardest things for us to believe; that we are capable of rising above where we started in the first place. This is one of the biggest challenges for me.
I took that step toward the unknown, toward something different. Learning about myself, developing my talents, changing my thinking, becoming curious, growing, expanding, starting this blog.
When I stepped off that ledge, I began to fall. At first, the fall disguised itself as a failure, and almost caused me to run back toward what I knew. Until I learned that falling wasn’t a bad thing, it was a teacher, and it was steadily guiding me toward change.
When I came to the point where I hit that bend in the road, it felt permanent to me. Why did I feel like this? I knew that it was only failing if I failed to get up, but why was it so hard for me to get back up?
IT HIT ME. It was so hard to get back up after I fell because I didn’t embody the belief that I could truly rise steeply beyond where I started
If we can change our mindset if we can believe and accept that we capable of opportunities, and a life beyond anything we have ever experienced. That mindset is where dramatic change occurs, and where our thoughts shape our experiences.
But you have to believe; you have to tell yourself through affirmations and incantations over and over again that YOU ARE CAPABLE (stay tuned for a post about affirmations and incantations!).
Next time you take a step toward the unknown remember the j curve; it will get worse before it gets better. Use falling as a teacher and remember after you hit the bend, you will rise dramatically from where you started.
Take one small step today,
X0-Jenna
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