‘When can I stop exercising?’ my friend asked me, ‘I’m about as fit as I’d like to be.’
He was asking me if, with all of the hours he’d sunk into the gym over the past few months, he’d maintain this fitness after he stopped exercising. Gently I told him no. I told him that if he didn’t keep up some form of exercise he’d end up back where he was. He wasn’t happy.
Long term change doesn’t usually come from putting effort into something for a short while and then leaving it in the past.
12 Step programs like AA, NA and others have the motto that you’re always in recovery. They know that changing habits is not something you do and then forget about it. It’s a life long practice.
So for anything you want to change, improve or achieve, you need to be working on it multiple times per week, if not everyday. And this brings about something interesting. We only have a limited amount of time each day.
You will have to choose what you will change and you will have to accept other things that you won’t change. There is no hack to becoming a perfect human.
Pick what matters most to you, do a little of it everyday and go from there.