Invite - Don't Muscle - Your Way to Change
Recently, I found myself thinking along the following lines:
“I’ve been meaning to get back to a morning routine all summer. It felt so good when I was waking up before my family and experiencing quiet, calm solitude before the bustle of the day. I did it much of the winter and spring, but damn it, I fell off the wagon. I should get going again!”
In the months since I stopped rising earlier, I’ve stumbled into my habit tracking template and taken note of people who I judge to be rocking their mornings and felt guilt: I’m reminded of exactly the morning routine I’m not doing.
Frustrated, I’ve chided myself, ‘I know better but I’m not doing better!’
I witness this dynamic with loved ones and clients, too.
Maybe you relate:
Perhaps your gym routine went off the rails – months ago.
You were researching a project and then stalled. You’ve lost momentum and it’s hard to get moving again.
You’ve been kicking around an idea you’d like to implement for a long time but never attempted it, despite sensing it could bring real benefit to your life - like taking a break from social media or writing a book.
When we’re not doing something we believe we ‘should’ be doing, I think we can have a tendency to get self-critical, assessing that our discipline is lacking.
I suggest that within the threads of this punishing stance lies the assumption that not only is our discipline not up to par but that we ourselves, more fundamentally, are bad or deficient in some way.
That may sound kind of dramatic but if you dig down, see if you can find this quality yourself - even at a very subtle level. It’s as though inside of us, there’s a teeny military colonel yelling:
“Come on, ________ (put down), you’re ___________ (harsh adjective) or not ___________ (worthy quality) enough. Get going, already! What’s wrong with you?”
Most of us have our own little (or not so little) source of shaming right in our head.
When that’s the quality of inner dialogue you’re entertaining to nudge you into behavioural change, what kind of results do you tend to experience?
Please make this inquiry and consider:
Does listening to that voice help you to move into action and take brave risks?
Does believing those refrains leave you feeling pummelled, discouraged, and limp?
Or somewhere in between? Or something else?
When it comes to creating change, how we relate to ourselves matters.
What I’ve noticed is that harsh inner voices yelling at me doesn’t tend to actually nudge me into action.
I call this approach to change ‘muscling’ - and the process doesn’t tend to be effective… or to feel good.
Instead, when I can cultivate more compassion, more curiosity and gently invite myself to change, that’s paradoxically when I often start to find traction and start moving.
Invite - Don’t Muscle - Your Way to Change
For me, what seems to motivate desired change is twofold:
encouraging conversations about the admired habit / ritual / new step OR
absorbing related information through reading or listening to a podcast or media clip
These kind of experiences act as a potent catalyst: learning and inspiration seem to be much gentler yet more powerful than inner shaming and self-berating.
For example, I recently stumbled across a podcast about morning routines. I resonated with its assertions that:
how we start our morning influences the whole day
the cognitive and spiritual benefits often compensate for the impact of getting less sleep
we thrive when solitude punctuates our stimulating lives - and most of us don’t require great swaths of contemplation but small and frequent doses matter
Listening to this podcast, I was so powerfully attuned to the benefits of intentional morning practices that I felt compelled to get up and start my abandoned ritual the very next day.
That felt so good that it was honestly easy to just keep going.
I was reminded of how, so often, the hardest part of creating change is getting started.
With muscling attempts, I hadn’t recommitted to my morning routine for months.
But with the gentle inviting-myself-to-change approach, I got oriented and moving within 24 hours.
Are you skeptical?
Afraid that if that inner colonel wasn’t whipping you incessantly, you wouldn’t do anything productive and might turn into a binge-watching Netflix puddle of a human?
I’m gonna try and persuade you that that fear along those lines - common as it is - is unfounded.
When I look back at my history of creating deliberate changes in my life and experiences with various habits, I can see how truly powerful this gentle invitation approach is.
For example, I’ve experimented with taking breaks from refined sugar in my diet (it always feels so good!).
I’ve noticed that when my sweet tooth is going crazy and my mini-colonel nags at me how I ‘should’ take a break again, that’s not as effective as simply getting back in touch with learning how sugar affects the body and the benefits of reducing it.
Same thing with wanting to reduce frittering my time on social media and compulsive screen time. I’ve been thinking for years that I ‘should’ only check my email (personally and professionally) at set, designated, and limited times in the day or week but never turned that instinct into practice.
Recently, reading Cal Newport’s book, “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” (highly recommend!) has been my latest ‘gentle invitation.’ Cal lays out his perspective, case studies, and simple, specific suggestions in such compelling ways that I’m already reducing the amount of time I spend on screens and feeling the benefit of more focus in my life.
One other counterintuitive gentle invitation practice is that you can inquire about what knocked you off track from something positive in the first place.
Replace Self-Criticism with Curiosity:
Replace beating yourself up for ‘falling off the wagon’ with genuine curiosity: did something external or in your inner landscape shift? What really happened?
Maybe what was once truly nourishing for you no longer was for a time - an old habit felt rote or you realized you were continuing a routine only to prove something to yourself or others.
Perhaps there was a damn legit external reason your rhythms got disrupted: you injured yourself and needed recovery time from running; a loved one was in crisis and you dropped your routines to be of service for a time.
When I took a moment to reflect on what knocked me out of my consistent morning practice, I realized that when the kids were out of school, we lost our rhythms. Bright summer evenings resulted in delayed bedtimes, more social activities, and packing lunches for the kids and laundry seemed to squish later and later into the evenings - and I started pushing snooze and dozing longer in the mornings because I wasn’t well rested. My animal body was offering genuine resistance to my intentions: I wanted (and needed) more sleep!
That insight didn’t change my desire to resume my practice - but I softened into more tenderness for myself, gave myself greater permission to be human and for conditions to be in flux.
Here’s a summary:
the muscling-way-to-change approach assumes, “I’m bad for not doing X and I SHOULD do it.”
the gentle-invitation-approach puts us in touch with, “X is nourishing, so helpful in creating qualities A, B, and C in my life, that I WANT to do it.”
It’s subtle but the shift from muscling to gently inviting can make all the difference.
For one thing, switching into the gentle track gets us out of a cruel and self-deprecating story.
For another, when we operate by ‘should’s,’ a subtle inner tension can arise: an autonomous part of us doesn’t want to feel ‘bossed around’ and so may resist the colonels’ orders and refuse to take action, even on something that would likely be very positive for us.
That is, the muscling-our-way-to-change approach can backfire and we can get stuck in a vicious cycle of being more immobilized and frustrated. Argh!
So, instead of pushing harder on the ‘should’ or getting further down on yourself or making rigid plans to create change you want in your life, my encouragement is paradoxical:
Take the pressure off.
Go remember or learn about why this change is important to you and what its benefits could be.
See if this experiment prompts a gentle invitation within you that propels you into movement in a way that harsh barking orders from that internal colonel haven’t been able to achieve.
Because when we’re in touch with really wanting something, feeling an intrinsic quality of desire, it’s amazing how we can mobilize into committed action.
(Side note: if you come to realize that what you want has actually changed - that’s allowed! - then hey, maybe it’s time to give yourself permission to pivot! Because that happens, too.)
But if you try the gentle approach and affirm that you DO still truly want the thing you’ve been hard on yourself about, yahoo, let’s see what happens for you!
If you want to clear stacks of paper piled in your living room, try watching a Marie Kondo Netflix or read her book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.”
If you’ve been discouraged and self-critical about not resuming exercise, a healthier diet, or getting more sleep, check out The Whole Life Challenge or some other holistic health source you respect.
Time to resume focus on your documentary project? Learn from a documentary-maker great or listen to an interview from an up-and-comer who’s on her way to creating her first documentary.
Still struggling? Check out: 8 Things to Get Moving When You Don’t Feel Like It.
Recap?
Take the pressure off of ‘the shoulds’
Ease off the muscling and harsh self-talk
Turn up the dial on speaking kindly to yourself
Crank up the volume on curiosity, learning and inspiration
Gently invite yourself to get back in touch with why you want this change in your life: listen, read, talk about your desired change and see what happens.
I’m gonna place my bets that you’re on your way to committed action before you know it.
I’ll be cheering you on all the way - likely from my meditation cushion at around 6:30am.
Please look deeply at what supports your ability to cultivate change - and I would love to hear you thoughts.
P.S. If you want to explore coaching for more support in navigating or cultivating change in your life, please book a free 60-minute consult with me. I’d love to connect with you. (No pressure!) XO
Nicola Holmes is a Life Coach who helps people turn their potent questions, dream and longings into inspired action. With warmth and wisdom, she’ll guide you to untangle constraints and cultivate courage to create a more aligned and joyful life. She has a BASc in Human Development, an MEd in Adult Learning and spent two decades working in the non-profit sector. Along with coaching for the past 14 years, she’s mama to two young spirited kids and dedicated to Buddhism. Having experienced long Covid and a move over the past two years, she brings deep empathy to others who are exploring how they’ve changed and who they’re becoming in turbulent times. Check out Nicola @nicolaholmescoach or join the email party for inspiration and resources to fuel the changes you want.