Shame and Yo-Yoing

Excerpt from thesimpledollar.com:

You shouldn't be ashamed of where you start. Guess what? No one is perfect in life. An awful lot of us are overweight. An awful lot of us are in deep debt. An awful lot of us can't play the piano. An awful lot of us can't write computer code. An awful lot of us don't read as much as we ought to. Do not be ashamed of where you're at right now. The big thing is to be proud that you've decided to accept a major goal for yourself and that you're actively working to improve your current state. The past is water under the bridge – we all start from where we're at now, not from where we were at ten years ago when things were "better."

No individual step you take while making a change in your life should be radical. Major changes to how we behave are almost impossible to perfectly implement. Going from spending thousands a month on unnecessary stuff to spending nothing at all will rarely work for more than a week or two. Why? Because whenever you make a major change like that, you're derailing a lot of tiny routines and habits, not just one. Humans are creatures of habit, and derailing even the simplest routine can be hard. Derailing lots of simple routines all at once can be incredibly hard. Make small changes, observe small victories, and be patient. It's far better than yo-yoing, where you make a radical change, see some great success immediately, then fall off the horse and find yourself back where you started.


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