Copyright 2007 Patti Henry

It’s the end of another year – a time to reflect. Are you where you want to be? Is your life working the way you want it to? Is your relationship? Are you living life fully? Passionately? Are you happy?

What would it take to make your life more like you want it to be?

I think it takes two things and only two things: courage and self-honesty. Actually, I’d be willing to boil it down to only one: self-honesty. Am I willing to be courageous enough to do the work that I need to do to change my life? Am I willing to feel fear and do it anyway? Am I willing to tell myself the truth?

Self-honesty operates on this level: am I willing to? but also on this level: am I really doing the work? We lie to ourselves. All of us. We pretend. We finagle. We rationalize. For example, if we want to lose weight and get back into shape in 2008, we might pretend it’ll be easy and a short-term effort. We might pretend that joining a gym is enough. We might pretend we are dieting while eating at McDonald’s because we didn’t order the large fries. We might pretend we are exercising everyday when really we didn’t walk today because it was too cold and we didn’t walk two days ago because it rained, but we will definitely walk tomorrow.

"I know I didn’t do it today – for a gazillion good reasons – but I will tomorrow," is perhaps the most frequent self-lie I hear in my practice. I often give a client a homework assignment the first session or so and then check in with them the next week to see how they did with it. This simple exercise gives me – and the client – invaluable information about their level of fear and how serious they are about making changes. Just coming to therapy to get a deeper level of self-understanding, without translating that into actual behavioral change, is certainly stopping short of making real changes, and being able to live life fully.

Real change is measurable. Do I have more money in the bank? Am I dating someone? Have I changed jobs? Have I stopped a destructive pattern? Am I still drinking? Have I filed for divorce? Have I actually lost weight – not just 3-5 pounds of water weight? Or, am I just pretending to do the work while not having results to show for it?

We are all good at self-deception. Brilliant at it, actually. For us to make a deep level long-term change we must be aware of this. Then, fight through our natural tendency and tell ourselves the truth solely based on results.

At one of the college prep high schools we have in Houston, the motto is, "There are no shortcuts." Oh, to have learned that life truth as a teenager! For the reality is this: if you want your life to be more congruent with exactly how you want it to be, you must WORK. Work hard, work consistently, work when you don’t want to work, and then work some more. Nobody will do it for you. Nobody can do it for you. There are no shortcuts. Tell yourself the truth about this.

I will tell you the work gets easier. It is most difficult and overwhelming early on in the process. I liken it to turning the wheels of a train. It takes a lot of energy to move those wheels even one inch in the beginning. But soon the train picks up momentum and starts rolling along without much effort. You will, too.

So, start at the beginning: how do you want your life to be different? Get specific. Get detailed. Write it down. Then, tell yourself the truth: there are no shortcuts. Get to work!

I support you from afar and encourage you to get started: life is short. Do it now.