Taking The Steps: Is It Healthy To Make Massive Changes In Life Or Should You Do It Bit By Bit?

Making any sort of change in life is a vast undertaking. But when we look at making these alterations in life, naturally, we feel some sense of trepidation. After all, taking the first step is the most difficult. But when you start to look at the concept of change, it all begins with the small things. But so many of us now feel that we have to make massive ones in order to feel the benefit. With this in mind, is it healthy to make these massive changes or should you actually do them bit by bit? Let’s see if we can answer the question, and provide some useful lifestyle alterations at the same time.

Giving Up An Unhealthy Habit

When we have an unhealthy habit, like smoking or a bad diet, we tend to look at it as a small component of the bigger picture. After all, everyone is entitled to a vice. But it’s as we get older, and our priorities shift into focus, that we start to realize how much will impact these unhealthy habits have on us. Look at something like smoking. We all know that there is plenty of bad press about this, but if this is your only vice, you tend to justify it. But when you are looking at it in the long term, the trick is all about making those little swaps at the outset. This is to stop the symptomatic need for something like tobacco. Vaping is one of those common replacements for cigarettes, and with many a vape flavor out there, it appears to be a good swap in the short-term. But giving up unhealthy habits is about the long-term mindset. It requires lifestyle alteration, not just swapping one thing for another.

Fixing Your Exercise

Exercise is another component of an overall healthy lifestyle. And now, as many people talk about why sitting is as bad as smoking, we have to remember that fixing our exercise isn’t about running a marathon every couple of days. Fixing exercise is a long-term process that you need to fine-tune. Exercise is a very good example of making small changes rather than massive ones. Look at those people that head to the gym in the New Year after the Christmas hedonism; all this overindulgence combined with the chance of a new start as the clocks reset for another year, means that people will flock to the gym. The big problem is that the vast majority of those people give up their endeavors a month or so into the New Year. Fixing your exercise is about implementing a small habit, and acclimatizing yourself to that. While there are those cliches like pushing for the burn, and so forth, the key to exercise is about getting stronger. This means that you start with a routine that just about pushes you to your limits, you then take time to recover, and go back to the routine, pushing it a little bit further. Fixing your exercise is a long-term process, and isn’t about an immediate result. While these days, we look to losing weight and attempt to find the quickest way to do this, it is again, about a lifestyle choice.

Creating A Vision For Your Life

This is is a very grandiose statement to make. Creating a vision for your life if can seem like a massive undertaking. But this is where things like 5-year plans come into play. Creating a vision for your life doesn’t mean mapping out every single thing you will be doing until the end of your life. Things will change. What your life is now and your ideal future will differ completely. But creating a vision for your new life is about taking those steps in the right direction. Do you want a better career? If so, do you need to undertake a new course? Do you need to start getting more experience in a certain field? A vision for your life is not necessarily about making massive changes right away but it’s about going in those directions but will result in a massive change. Look back 10 years, how different were you? Things may not have changed seismically as time went on, but if you are completely different from the way you were, you can see just how much of an impact something small will truly make. It’s a good exercise, write down where you want to be in 5 years, then 10 years, and then look at a way to head towards this right now. It doesn’t have to be a massive thing, it’s a small change that you need to consolidate in your mind.

Implementing A Realistic Outlook

Part of these big changes in life is all about looking at the risk versus the rewards. There are things that, realistically, you may have to give up in order to achieve your ideal life or goal. There may be an aspect of your life that can help you already. If something like financial freedom is a major goal, will you need to give up certain hallmarks of your current lifestyle? You may have numerous nights out on the town, or live in a luxury apartment. And if you really want to have a disposable income, and not worry about the bills every single month, you will have to make a short-term sacrifice. We have to implement a realistic outlook, and this may mean really looking at our lives from a different perspective. And this is where seismic changes can have a negative impact on us. If we are used to a certain lifestyle, we may feel that these changes are too much to cope with. But you may see that short-term alterations are achievable, because if you change one or two things at a time, you don’t feel overwhelmed by the process. It’s about making it manageable, and this is where habits become embedded. On the other hand, if you want to make big leaps and fulfill your ambitions, like moving to another city, getting a new job, and so forth, you’ve got to think about your needs, your once, and the things that are just window dressing. Because if you are ready to make a sacrifice for long-term benefit, you have to ask yourself if you are able to cope without certain material goods. Some people cannot.

Never Give Up

We encounter obstacles when making any sort of change in life. And we know, realistically, there will be obstacles either from the perspective of family members, friends, and all the people that we want to support us. There are also people that are classed as “the haters”- those passive-aggressive people that love to make themselves feel better by talking you down, either behind your back, or to your face. But when you start going in one direction, you will find so many different roadblocks. There will be mistakes, failures, and you may find yourself as an obstacle. But when you make that first step, part of it is about pushing forward. You will feel it when you’re heading in the right direction. Part of it is about getting into a comfortable pattern, but every time we try something new, it will always feel difficult. Naturally, it’s an alien concept, and so, our first inclination if something is difficult to give up. There will be plenty of people around that may question your ability to do anything. But, forget about them! Try the best you can, this is good enough. As long as you know you’ve done your best, only then can you be satisfied with your efforts. But until then, you’ve got to keep going! 

When it comes to any change in life, a massive change will be a shock to the system, and even doing something bit by bit can mean that you’ll encounter obstacles along the way. As we go through life, and encounter roadblocks, haters, and have conversations with own abilities to do something, if we give up, we only have ourselves to blame. In one respect, making massive changes can be unhealthy, but you could learn so much about yourself in the process. On the other hand, making smaller changes is sensible, just as long as you are heading in the right direction. You may have people depend on you to support them financially, and you have got to weigh up the pros and cons in terms of the big picture. But if you decide to give up on something, you will regret it. When we look at making massive changes in our lives, we can jump straight into it, and we can sink or swim, but this is where we can arm ourselves with the right tools to navigate it better. You may very well have feelings of depression as you go through these problems, but when you come out the other side, there is such a feeling of achievement, that you’ll look back and see that all of the hardships were worth it. They never feel like it at the time. And when we make these massive changes in life, it all begins with one simple step.