JOANNA CAREW

It’s a week since I attended the Elite Dental Leaders course, a week that has been incredibly busy working, socialising, and volunteering. Yet, the whole time there’s been a low grade whirr in my head as I’ve ruminated on the Elite teachings.

Sure, I’m a self-development junkie, having read and listened to dozens of thought leaders, I’ve made significant progress over the years to transform my life. However, Sameer and Hassan’s teachings reached deeper than I ever expected, and all week I have been asking myself one question:

“Are you prepared to commit to consistency?”

It is a huge decision to make. Hassan and Sameer didn’t teach anything revolutionary, or unprecedented, but they peeled back all the bullsh*t and placed a metaphorical mirror in front of each of us.

.. Am I prepared to commit to consistency?!?

There’s no point paying lip service here. I can adopt all sorts of lifestyle changes, but if I do not commit to long term, wholesale change what is the point? On a tough day things will slide and then they’ll slide a bit further, and before I know it I will have returned to where I was before.

.. So, am I prepared to commit to consistency?!?

That question has rolled around my head over and over. To commit means defining my values, my purpose, WHO I am. Commitment means showing up every day, living by those values every single day. Even when I am fed up, overdone, and someone is pressing my buttons.

After a week of soul-searching and rumination, I have decided …

YES, I COMMIT TO CONSISTENCY!

I am holding myself accountable to this decision, it brings butterflies to my chest as I take this leap forward into a new way of living.

There are many tasks to undertake now as I identify and define my values, purpose, and goals. I’ve carved out a lot of time this weekend to engage with this process, and will share these with you in the coming days.

Healthy lifestyle changes are easier to identify, and Sameer recommended reading Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s 4 Pillars.

Chatterjee sets out realistic and incremental changes that are sustainable to live by as part of a busy working life. I have created a game plan for implementing this and will write a post to show you how I propose to tweak my daily routines for the better.

My whole life I’ve been awesome at All or Nothing, getting super excited and obsessive about X or Y, then flitting like a magpie to the next shiny challenge. This moment feels profound, as I stop and say, “Jo, time to even out the rollercoaster a little, you’ve got to stick even when you don’t want to.”

My belief is that by achieving more consistency I will have more balance; energy, moods, productivity, etc. and I’ll report on how this is going over the coming days, weeks, and months.

Will you share your thoughts and experiences too? What have you done to make sure you show up every day? Or do you struggle to maintain lifestyle changes over the long haul?