Draw A Line In The Sand

Sometimes you feel like you REALLY got to change something. Maybe it's an annoying habit. Maybe it's more serious. Maybe it's losing weight, or stopping smoking. Whatever it is, you just get fed up with the situation. You're motivated to change.

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE!

Maybe it's occurred to you - either you think of it yourself, or you read it somewhere - Draw A Line In The Sand!

And step over it. And things just change.

It's tempting. Especially if you're really exasperated. While it can work, it often doesn't. Here's why:

Because the follow-through is either lacking or it's inadequate. So the motivation is faulty. It's easy to say the words:

"I decided! I’m going to change!"

But what really determines whether that decision 'sticks' or not?

Two things:

1. The state you're in when you make that decision.

If you're filled with your own power - in touch with yourself - standing on a firm foundation - that decision or choice is more likely to stick. If your foundation is filled with exasperation, worry, frustration, weariness, anger... then it probably won't stick. Because the motivation is not solid.

If it's filled with love and will, there's a much greater chance it sticks. The more of your own personal power you can muster as you're making the choice or decision, the more likely it will be to really change things.

As a child, you made many fundamental choices and decisions that are quite alive today. Generally speaking, you were filled with emotion - REAL emotion - and that gave them the punch to continue influencing you even today.

One powerful choice can change your life. Many childhood choices and decisions did. If you search your past, you can find those fundamental choices and decisions - to either accept them or change them.

2. How skilled you are at making choices and decisions.

Which basically comes down to practice. Out of necessity we make choices and decisions all day long. Whether we want to or not. Whether we realize it or not:

"I guess one more scoop of ice cream won't hurt anything."

But often we end up blaming those choices and decisions on circumstances, other people, or even our own subconscious or unconscious minds.

"Everybody else is doing it."

"You talked me into it."

"I didn't consciously choose that."

Blame is always a lie. But beyond that, we're not letting ourselves develop the POWER of choice - or the POWER of decision.

Thus, when it comes to drawing a line in the sand, within minutes or hours or days, we're back to 'normal'. Because there was no power behind the drawing of the line. Due to a faulty foundation, or a lack of skill, or both.

What's the solution? Stop drawing? Give up - retreat back into pity; or the judgments? Accept our miserable lives the way they are? Put on our coat of nobility?

"I guess it's just my lot in life to suffer. That's my fate. I can't change things..."

That's one option. Or, you can accept responsibility for your life. Realize WHY drawing a line in the sand doesn't work. And get about the business of changing it.

Besides the personal shortcomings you may or may not have, there's also one fundamental flaw with even drawing that line in the sand to begin with. That is, it presupposes that all you have to do is draw the line. Then it's over. Then you don't have to be responsible for what you chose or decided. Now you can go back to sleep. Now it should 'just happen'.

In other words, you're setting yourself up to fail.

But if you HAVE made a powerful choice or decision, then you WILL follow-through. By making all the *secondary* choices that MUST BE MADE - if you want your first choice to stick.

If your primary choice is to stop eating ice cream, then at the very least, you'll need to make a secondary choice to stay away from it! Stop buying it. Stop walking into the ice cream store.

You'll need to draw that line in the sand over and over and over. Not just once. Sooner or later, if you're persistent, then the pattern will be laid. And it will no longer be a 'contest of wills'. Instead, it'll be second nature. You won't have to think about whether or not you'll eat that ice cream.

But until that happens, you'll need to follow-through. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and you'll look foolish.

So what would stop you from the follow-through? Usually it's unresolved thoughts and feelings which comprise the patterns of the past. Those patterns compare to cracks in your motivation. Heal those patterns and you heal your faulty motivation.

Then it becomes much easier to draw a line in the sand... that changes you.