It can feel a bit daunting when we start to explore ways to develop understanding of ourselves and process experiences. There are so many different strategies and ideas for managing our wellbeing, it’s hard to know where to start. It might be meditation, exercise, journaling or any number of different activities. Let’s explore why trying something new is so challenging and some common difficulties that might emerge for us.
Getting started with anything new is difficult for most of us. Our brains favour familiarity because it signals safety so newness can lead to resistance, and we can find ourselves stopping a practice before we experience any benefits. If this rings true, you’re not broken, just human.
Maybe you’ve started and stopped a meditation practice 6 or 7 times before finding a way to stick with it (for now). You might know that meditation is helpful for you, understand all the challenges logically but still keep dropping it every couple of months. When we let something go, it’s easy to beat ourselves up about failing at yet another thing. But each time we ‘fail,’ we can learn something new about our relationship to the activity.
Think about a time you started something new and stuck with it. Even if it’s hard to find something, it’s there. Maybe think about what you do each day and pick one of those or bring to mind an achievement and think about the steps it took to get there.
- Can you remember how you felt when you started doing it?
- What helped you stick with it even when it was difficult?
- What did you do to support yourself or what support did you seek out to keep going?
We can draw on these feelings and learnings whenever we start something new.
Sometimes without realising it, we give up on new activities because they are a bit (or very) uncomfortable. This discomfort signals a lack of safety that our brains are clinging to so we avoid it. But if we really want a change to happen, we need to sit in the uncomfortable for a little while until our brain learns that we’re still safe. It’s a bit like exposure for anxiety. The longer we stay in the situation triggering our anxiety, the more likely we are to experience that anxiety lessen.
It's important to note that we’re talking about discomfort here, not distress. That’s usually a sign we’ve gone too far with something and need to back off a little.
One of the key pieces of advice given for doing new things, making changes or creating habits is to start small. The reason why this can be so effective is that smaller changes activate less resistance in our thoughts and feelings. There are fewer reasons we can give for not walking for 5 minutes than not running for 20 minutes each day. Small changes are more manageable emotionally but because they appear insignificant, we often dismiss them as an option.
This can be the case more often when addressing our emotional wellbeing because we can find ourselves in a state of desperation. We feel so terrible that we start trying all the ‘tricks’ we can find to change things only to discover that none of it is making us feel better. We get frustrated at the new strategies we’ve tried and at ourselves for bothering to try. In moments of desperation, it is even more important that we are gentle with ourselves and start with small, manageable changes or we will find ourselves repeating this cycle of trying everything and getting nothing in return.
Before you start with a new activity, it can be helpful to consider some of the following questions. These can provide a framework for holding us in the exploration of something new.
Why do you want to start doing this?
Is it because you’re curious about it and wondering if it will be helpful? Or because someone told you to do it? Having a clear ‘why’ is what keeps us returning to an activity even when it feels tough.
What are you hoping to get out of it?
It’s highly unlikely that any activity will have an immediate, long lasting positive impact. We can have high expectations for all sorts of reasons so it’s important to keep it realistic. If the activity is moving us towards the type of life we want to have or type of person we want to be, it’s always worth it but the benefits may be imperceptible. For example, we might not realise how helpful regular exercise is until we have an injury and are forced to stop. The experience of starting anything new will have its ups and downs so we need to be willing to stick to something long enough to feel the positive impact.
Can this fit into your life? If so, how?
We’ll only stick to something if we can work out a way to fit it into our lives. Consider time, resources and money required for the new activity. If we have to rearrange entire days week after week for an activity, we’re unlikely to keep going with it. Sometimes we need to accept that it can’t look exactly how we want it to so need to adjust to suit our needs. For example, you might want to meditate for 20 minutes every day but the reality is that other commitments take priority and a full 20 minutes each day is not achievable right now. But 5 minutes twice a day could work instead.
To conclude, starting anything new or doing something different is uncomfortable. There are so many reasons why an activity might not work for us but none of those reasons is about you as a person. There’s usually something that isn’t quite right and whilst we have a tendency to lean into judging ourselves harshly for giving up on something. The practice (which can also be uncomfortable) of treating ourselves kindly and remaining curious about what we can learn each time will be more helpful long term.
Resources
Comments