I have been thinking lately about my life as it was in my 20s compared with life as it is in my 50s. A lot of time has passed, but has it made a difference? I have learned SO much in the last 30 years that I can honestly say that those 30 years have been very educational for me. I am not the person I was in my 20s. I don't make the same kinds of decisions that I made in my 30s. I am even better than I was in my 40s. Think of how much I will have learned and grown by the time I am 80!
Life is a process. It is especially so when you work on improving yourself everyday. I certainly am not successful in getting better everyday, but when I look at my improvement over 30 years, I'm doing pretty darn good!
If you get discouraged and think you are not seeing progress in your life, even when you are trying to make some, realize that some progress can only be seen when looked at from a great distance - maybe it will be 30s years. Maybe it will only be 10 years or 2 years, but the trick is to never give up trying to get better, to set goals.
I am not saying that you should do it through New Year's resolutions, but the point is to do it. It WILL make a difference in who you are and the choices that you make. For me, writing down the goals helps me to keep them. Being accountable to someone for those goals also helps me to keep them. I am not always successful, and sometimes I mess up big time, but every day we are given the opportunity to start again and to make better choices. I hope that you can find the courage to believe in yourself and your ability to change and become better.
I have often heard people talk about their "favorite sins," the ones that you like, so you don't want to give them up. Of course, I had mine. One of them was watching "The Young and the Restless." It isn't really a terrible thing, but it was a time waster, and to me wasting time is worse than wasting money, so it was a problem. Besides, I have watched it for over 35 years! How is that for a habit? When I think of all that time lost, it kind of makes me sick. Five hours a week for 35 years? Well, that's a lot of wasted time. This last October, I decided to stop doing something that I had been doing and start doing something I wanted to start doing. I decided it was time to give up my show. I have done it! I am pretty proud of myself for not watching this show for the last 8 weeks. What an accomplishment!
I have also seen people who don't set goals and don't try to change, and I have to say that they DO change over time too, but it isn't a good change. You know the people, the ones that say, "This is just how I am." Over time, their problems become worse and bigger and harder.
The choice is yours. You are moving and growing in your life. You choose if the change is positive by setting goals for yourself or if it is negative, by not setting goals and going down hill instead. I choose to aim at achieveable goals and work until I have them down and then go on to something else. In the end, I may grow to be the kind of person that I want to be, one step at a time.
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