You have a goal to eat right, exercise, or make a change in your life. You start out bright eyed, passionate, and with a ready to change attitude. You are consistent for 2 weeks or longer in the beginning, but now, the days are filled with long endless tasks and a monotonous busy schedule. When your alarm goes off, you hit the snooze button and may say, "here we go again." Though your day is just getting started, your gas tank is low and you're mentally and emotionally exhausted.
How many times have you said the words, "I quit" or "I give up."
Most don't make the obvious or rash decision to quit but could you be micro-quitting? This behavior is far more subtle and sneaky.
Maybe you start getting into the office a little later or showing up to meetings last minute. Instead of bringing your A game, you bring your B and C game to work. Extra projects are a hard pass and you're just coasting on by; counting down the minutes to when you go home.
At the end of the day, you get your favorite fast food for comfort because you've got the "f-it" attitude. Once you're home, you pull a "Bridget Jones" moment of "one glass" of wine and check out for the rest of the evening because your brain is fried. It's just one time. Or maybe you skip the gym, just this one time. One time eventually turns into twice or three times a week.
Eventually you've been completely derailed, and your goal is nowhere in sight.
We all do this for one reason or another but micro-quitting is a sign of something I highly recommend you take a closer look at.
FIRST: GIVE YOURSELF GRACE. It's going to be alright but let's work on changing the behavior so you can live the life you want to live.
SECOND: AWARENESS
"Awareness is the greatest agent for change." -Eckhart Tolle
Are you aware that your actions may be a version of "micro-quitting?"
Let's began with these three easy steps:
1. Answer the following question:
Do you have a burning desire or a goal for change?
2. Name that desire or goal. Write it down. If you're like me, I would be rolling my eyes and saying to myself, "I've written this darn thing down a million times already." My enlightened response is, "Is that so? Have you achieved your goal or desire? No? Then, write it AGAIN."
3. Write down behaviors that could resemble the concept of Micro-quitting as it relates to what's keeping you from your goal.
Once you become aware of how you are micro-quitting, we can then start to dive deeper into the cause. Check out next week's blog on why we self sabatoge; one possible reason we micro-quit.
Baby steps my friend. Change isn't always easy, and our brains do an amazing job at keeping us safe.
Stay tuned!
Dr. Lexi