The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.”
―J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan
My humblest moment came when a sever case of pneumonia ruined a Caribbean vacation with my family. After that, I took a hard look at myself, and I could no longer ignore that I was not the man I knew I could be.
I meant to do better.
I wanted to do better.
I fell short.
I was disappointed in myself. I had been an Eagles Scout who had gone to medical school and became a respected general surgeon. I was successful on the outside.
I was also obese, unhealthy, angry, and not living up to my responsibilities as a husband and a father. On the inside, I felt like a failure.
I had failed to become the person I knew I could be. I wasn’t living the life that deep down I knew I was meant to live.
Gandhi has said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Then the analogy would be, Unhappiness is when what you do, think, and say is out of harmony with who you know you are meant to be.
I was out of harmony, but I failed to recognize my error. Instead, I applied the logic I had been taught; hard work will make you successful, and being successful will make you happy. So I worked harder. I put in long hours to bring home a bigger paycheck, and I also took on new responsibilities that culminated in my being named the Chairman of the Department of Surgery.
Rather than make me happier, the added “success” meant added hours away from my home and family. Denied the opportunity to rest and recharge, my “success” did not make me happier. It only made me more exhausted and miserable. I felt like a martyr to my job. And no one cared.
Looking back, I am embarrassed at what I had let myself become. Maybe that is a good thing. As the philosopher, Alain de Botton said, “Anyone who isn’t embarrassed by who they were twelve months ago isn’t learning enough.”
There is a legend that tells us if you can put a frog in a pot of water and slowly raise the water’s temperature, you can boil the frog. But, if you put a frog in a hot water kettle, the frog will jump out. The slow changes go unnoticed until it is too late for the frog. The same had been true of me, I had allowed things to slowly worsen until I found myself suffocated by success.
Like the frog, I needed something to alert me to the danger of my situation. That is why I am thankful for that awful vacation. A vacation I spent coughing and febrile in a hotel bed in the Caribbean while my family enjoyed the island without me. A holiday where I yelled at my children to “Just, go away and leave me alone” when all they wanted was for me to play with them in the water. A vacation ruined by a sickness I took with me as baggage from my overworked life.
I did some deep soul searching after that wake-up call. I did not like what I saw. It may be overstating the case to say that my career and lifestyle were killing me, but it had definitely robbed me of the opportunity to feel joy and love.
And again, I realized that no one cared. But this time, I also realized that, if no one cared my job was killing me; maybe no one would notice if I changed it.
I resolved to lose weight and get fit enough to return to outdoor activities. It started with twenty minutes of walking three times a week. Doesn’t sound like much, but when you are as bad as I was, it makes a difference.
Charles Duhigg writes about Keystone Habits in his book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Busines. He defines them as “small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives”. For me, that modest exercise proved my keystone habit. It led to so much more.
As the old saying goes, “Nothing breeds success like success.” My modest beginnings produced some results, and I was hooked. The early success got me wondering what would happen if I stopped eating the fried foods I knew I should not be eating. So I cut those out and saw more improvement. After that, it was exercise longer and harder. As my performance improves, I began to view food as fuel for my body and made decisions accordingly. In the end, I lost the weight and ran a half-marathon as proof to myself that I had gotten the job done.
The results spilled over into other aspects of my life. I returned to reading, started spending more time outdoors, and playing with my children. I rediscovered an interest in photography, and what began as a way to entertain myself turned into a sideline business.
I had held back from making these changes earlier in my life and career because I feared what others would think. Would they see me as lazy and self-involved for putting myself first? The answer was no. What they saw was a happier and more productive version of me that others wanted to work with.
Looking back, I realize that I had let my status become more important than my growth, and in the end, both stagnated. And stagnation is not a good place for living things. Living beings exist in two forms, growing and dying. There is no middle ground. Stagnation is a slow death. I had been dyeing slowly. Now I was growing and living again. I felt like a man held underwater for too long who had been released. I never wanted to return to what I had been.
The biggest mistake I had made was in looking to the future. I always saw a new milestone up ahead. Get into medical school, land a good residency, find a good job, work my way up to big money, become the Chairman of the Department of Surgery, etc. Today was lived for tomorrow. But as Meredith Wilson wrote in The Music Man, “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.”
Looking back, I found my life was a lot of empty yesterdays—missed opportunities to improve my experiences, marriage, relations with my children, and myself. My pursuit of success tomorrow had robbed me of the chance to live and grow today. I had stagnated.
So I decided to start making today worth remembering. I began building opportunities for growth into every day. I started by paying myself first.
Pay Yourself First
When I started working, I started investing money for my retirement. I knew that if I waited until the end of the month to send in the investment check, I would spend all the money instead. So, I decided to pay myself first. I set up a direct deposit to my investment account and had money automatically transferred as soon as the check hit the bank. My investments got made, and the rest of the money was mine to do with as I pleased.
I began to use the same pay myself first strategy to my growth. I get up early to meditate, read something inspiring, journal, and today I am using it to write this article. I make sure to reserve a little time for myself before I face the world. This started with 30 minutes, but today I reserve 90 minutes for my morning routine. It is the best spent time of my day.
Choose Growth
Whatever you do with the time you set aside, the goal should be to move forward into growth. Given a choice between earning more money and growth, choose growth. Choose learning. Choose health. The decision to invest in yourself is never the wrong decision. By missing out on a little cash today, you can make yourself more valuable in the future.
Keystone Habits
You don’t have to begin by remaking your life from scratch. That task is simply too daunting, and you will never do it. Start simple with one habit that leads to others. In my case, it was exercise that led to a cascade of positive changes in my life. Pick one area that you can improve. Select the area that will make the most significant change. Then focus on just that one habit until it becomes second nature. Once that habit sets in, you will be surprised how naturally other good habits attach themselves to you.
Start with Your Values
As Gandhi reminded us, happiness is when we act in a way consistent with our values. If we think one thing, but do and say something else, we are out of harmony. It is like setting the GPS in your car for one destination and then driving to another location. The constant corrections and suggestions from the route guidance will drive you crazy after a while. The frequent interruptions with “recalculating” will also make it hard to concentrate, increasing the risk that you won’t arrive at either destination.
Life is much easier when it is lived in harmony with what is most meaningful to us. I recommend sitting down and writing out a list of values and priorities. Get it all down on paper. Then let it sit for a week. Now go back and edit that master list down to the five top values and five top priorities you will pursue for the near future. You can swap things on and off the list as time goes on. This isn’t cheating, it is growth when it is done consciously.
Don’t Let Others Hijack Your Mind.
I have a rule that I do not check my cellphone, email, news, or look at alerts until after I have gotten through the time I set aside for myself in the morning. A morning routine’s principle goal is to focus on what is important to you and not what other people think is urgent. Remember, where our thoughts go, our lives go. So, abstain from electronic interruptions first thing in the morning. There will be plenty of time for others in your day. This is your time. Treat it like it is sacred.
Unlearn Old Limits
Growth is about learning and trying new things. What most frequently holds us back from doing so is old ideas about our limits. The whole point of growth is to become the kind of person who does things the former you could not, or would not do. To grow, you need to rise above the limits set by yourself and others. If you find yourself thinking, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do ___________.” Then stop and ask yourself, “Why not?” Just because you haven’t done it before does not mean you can’t do it now. Everything you have ever done from your first steps to your first word is something you had never done before. Personal growth is as much an issue of unlearning old ideas and limits as it is about learning new things—maybe more so.
Growth is Scary
I’ll be honest, it is easier to stay stuck where you are then to grow. After all, your current situation may be staid and boring, but you know it, know what to expect and are at least reasonably competent at it. So why risk a frightening change. The answer is that stagnation is a slow death. Living things must grow. Look at trees, they develop their whole life. Every year they add a new ring and get a little taller. People must grow also, but not in the way of getting physically bigger. Humans grow by adding new skills and abilities, facing challenges, and becoming better. Growth is your natural state. Embrace it. As the world-renowned discoverer of Self -Actualization Theory, Abraham Maslow put it, “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen, again and again, fear must be overcome again and again.” He went on to say, “What one can be, one must be!”
The acorn must become an oak tree. It is the nature of acorns. And that oak tree will spend it’s life growing, branching, reaching for the sky and bearing acorns of its own. That is the nature of acorns and oak trees. It is the way of all species. To assume humans are different is to go against all of nature. The truth is that change can be frightening. Growth can be painful. However, nothing is more painful than remaining stagnant in a life that does not suit you.
Recognize that growth is your natural state and that stagnation is just slow death. Always choose growth. Let your values lead you to the Keystone Habits that will trigger a cascade of positive change in your life. Unlearn your limits and the old ideas that hold you back. Embrace the fear and uncertainty to become what you can become—what you must become.
A self-willed man has no other aim than his own growth.”
— Bruce Lee
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