We are what we repeatedly do

I was reminded of this quote by Aristotle in the last few days and had to share because it is something that easily gets overlooked.

Aristotle said: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Often when we have a goal or change we are trying to implement, it is easy to look at the big picture and become completely overwhelmed.

So in order to simplify it – as yourself this question. What is it that you are doing each and every day?

How does that align with your goals and how you want your life to look and feel?

For me, I knew that I wanted to start my own business to help other women facing the same sort of tansition as me, I wanted to prioritise my health (both mental and physical) and I wanted to create and maintain connections with other people. So how was watching too much Netflix, spending too much time on my phone, drinking wine most nights to relax and not getting enough sleep helping me to maintain the life that I wanted? Brace yourself – they weren’t.

If you have goals, and most of us in this community do – when was the last time you took an honest look at what you are doing with your time? If you find yourself constantly setting yourself the same goal and failing to reach it, going around in circles and finding yourself back where you started, grab a pen and paper and look at your habits and see if there’s any way to change things up. It’s not an opportunity to start beating yourself up with a big stick – this is an exercise in self love. A lot of the time we are not reaching our goals because we are being WAY too hard on ourselves and expecting far too much, too soon.

See where you can make small, manageable changes that you can stick to CONSISTENTLY. If you want to start reading more – a few pages a day is a better place to start than trying to force yourself to read fifty and failing. If you want to start getting fit, start by walking more often, rather than deciding to suddenly start running everyday and getting injured. Setting goals and wanting to make real change doesn’t stop once the goal is hit, we want our lives to be a beautiful work in progress that helps us grow and feel empowered.

So evaluate your current reality; think about where you want to get to and how you would feel when you do. Write it down – write down the feeling that you want to embody. What changes can you start today (because really, why wait) that would take you one step closer to achieving your goal? What could you start doing that would help you to start tapping into that magical feeling? What can you do that will propel you forwards to start hitting your goals and to live a bigger, bolder more beautiful life?

Don’t forget that small, consistent steps in the right direction add up to big, meaningful change. So, see where you can start showing up for yourself on a regular basis and commit to making those changes.

Allow yourself the freedom to believe that the power to change is within you, because it is. You only have to see it.