Comfy Jeans...
Jo Robinson-Howarth
Helping you to prioritise your mental and emotional wellbeing every day | Founder of The Happiness Club membership | Professional Speaker | Therapist | Trainer |
Hello!
Hands up if you have a pair of really comfy old jeans? A pair that you really love wearing, they fit you perfectly, you can move around in them easily, you know what tops go best with them, you know how to wear them. They've got the odd bit of fraying going on, the material is a bit worn, there's maybe the odd rip but they are comfortable.
Now think about buying a new pair of jeans. They look so much better than your old pair. There's no fraying, no rips, the material is smooth and perfect. But they feel a bit stiff, they're harder to get on than your old pair and you have to breathe in a bit to wear them. Whilst they look good and you know they are better for you, after a couple of hours it's getting a bit hard to hold your tummy in all the time, it's getting a bit hard to breathe in the new way.
So after a while you take the new jeans off and you slip that old pair back on. Phew, you know how to wear these, you can breathe a bit easier, you ignore the frayed bits and the rips because it all feels comfortable again.
And so it is with patterns of behaviour folks. The old ones are 'comfortable' because we know how to deal with them, we know what to expect even if that outcome is not what we want consciously. The new behaviours feel brilliant to start with, but then it gets a bit hard to keep it up and after a while it is so easy to slip back into the old, usual ones.
I love this analogy. I use it all the time. Remember those jeans today, put the new pair on, see if you can catch yourself slipping into the old pair and gently bring yourself back to the new pair.
If you keep putting that new pair back on, eventually they will become just as comfortable, if not more so, than the old pair and the old pair can go in the bin....
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