Sustainability of Effort

Every January there is a massive influx of people joining gyms and starting new diets. Anytime there is a reset button handy, people are quick to implement the change they have had on the back burner for a while. A gym that was standing room only on January 2nd invariably is a ghost town come Groundhogs Day. Despite every moment of every day being an opportunity to begin anew, the majority of people procrastinate until they feel a call to action. While the call to action should be an expanding waistline, most wait for a chronological reset as opposed to a circumstance reset. Most see January 1st or Monday as better times to make change than the present.

The secret to lasting change is sustainability of effort. Anything you do to generate the change you are looking for, must be something you can do for the rest of your life if you wish for that change to be permanent. This is why people are rarely able to keep up the pace they set in January over the long term. Life tends to interfere with even the best laid plans and not many people enjoy doing the same thing after they have reached their target goal.

Earning a black belt in kung fu is not an easy accomplishment. It takes years of dedication that culminates with a twelve hour test. What separates the students who will be around to earn higher degrees of black belt from the ones that will not go beyond their first degree blackbelt is the sustainability of their effort. Those who approach the black belt as a journey as opposed to a destination are best equipped for training for the long term. Those who see the black belt as a destination tend to sacrifice so much to achieve it that they do not have anything left after reaching that first summit. They have the best intentions about their future but they do not establish a sustainable training regime to serve themselves beyond their immediate goal.

Mastery is process driven. Develop a process that serves your goal, you will reach that goal. Make that same process sustainable, your goal becomes permanent.

“Sustainability is growth based on forms and processes of development that do not undermine the integrity of the environment on which they depend.” - Jim MacNeill (1928 - 2016)