One of the many Tony Robbins CDs I have mentions something that has been coming to mind a lot lately. He mentions that he has a piano that needs tuning so he calls a piano tuner. The guy comes out and tunes it and then says he’ll be back in a short time. Tony Robbins asks why he’ll be back, didn’t he just tune the piano? The guy says, “Yes, but it’s been out of tune so long that it will slip back to where it was and I’ll need to keep putting it where we want it to stay until it stays on it’s own” (not exact quote but same basic idea).
People who are trying to change ideas, habits, attitudes, thoughts…whatever it is…are like a piano that has been out of tune for a long time. You get focussed, you push on towards your goal, you start to slip, you make a complete nosedive and then you are back where you started saying, “See? That didn’t work! I can’t do it!” BUT if you were to pick yourself up, brush yourself off and get back in the saddle with determination and faith that this time you would be able to reach your goal…You would make it farther than last time before you slipped (IF you slip at all). And each time this happens, you might make it twice as long as the last. And the possibilities in between “down time” are endless. So, this is completely hypothetical but…let’s say you spend 2 days being gung-ho about a new project and 30 days in a depressed funk, and then you pull yourself up and you spend 4 days working toward the goal and then slip off for about 15 days….then it’s 8 working days and 7 days of being sort of depressed over the state of things…then it’s 16 days of productive positive steps and 3 days of sitting on the couch watching soap operas…then 32 days of up time, 1 day of down time… See where this is going? Each time you picked yourself up and started back towards the goal, you were “tuning the piano”. And the need for it slowly became less and less and less until it looked more like a half day of sitting in your jammies, eating chocolate ice cream from the carton and reading “Psycho-Cybernetics” instead of a full blown bout of depression.
I used to make a plan and chart it out and have diagrams and affirmations on post-its all over the house…and then get used to seeing them and not really “see” them and just slide back into my old slump…NOW, I notice I’m going into a slump and think, “Time to tune the piano!” and I am able to get focussed again and keep going on my way towards my goal.
It’s not easy to spot when you begin to slide back into a slump, but I think when you get tired of hearing yourself complain about it and make the decision to put your foot down and make it work for you, then you start to notice. I think it’s really a matter of how bad you want it. Do you want to be successful and happy ENOUGH to pull yourself out of your comfort zone AND AND AND are you willing to do what it takes to STAY OUT of that comfort zone? Are you ready to make a new comfort zone?
I firmly believe that we are all capable of doing whatever it is we want to do. I also believe that we deprive ourselves of what we say we want because it’s a scary thing to leave that area you know so well…even if it is an area of stress, pain, misery, depression…whatever…it’s yours, you know it, it doesn’t change, it’s comfortable!
I’ve put my foot down. I just have to keep putting it back down. And while I seem to be catching myself slipping back into the old habits, at least I’m catching it! I never noticed before. That is progress, I think. Now that I’ve hit that stage, I hope the process of reprogramming myself with good habits will speed up and things will really start to get increasingly better here.
I’m sure they will get better. And I’m afraid it’s going to be me to make the first significant step here cause hubby has way too far to go to be the one to grab hold of the reins and do what needs to be done. He’s trying. He really is. But he’s got a ways to go before he can make it more than a day or two without being ready to give up on himself. And while that sucks, it’s better than having him at the stage where he’s already given up and is inebriated and a liability to our entire future.
I see progress here. I’m very optimistic about it all. We are going to accomplish our dreams…it WILL happen.
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