Life changes are hard. Starting a business, preparing for a new job, moving to another city, or changing your health habits can leave you tired, doubtful, and tempted to return to what was familiar.
This is not another “you just need more discipline” post. It is a reflection exercise I use when the work of changing starts to feel heavier than the reason I began.
Remember what prompted the change
Take a moment to recall the experience that pushed you to make a change. Write down what was happening, how it felt, and what you wanted to be different.
Maybe you felt unfulfilled at work and decided to prepare for a new role. Maybe you wanted to improve your health. Maybe you started a business because the alternative no longer felt acceptable.
The point is not to stay angry at your past. It is to remember that the old situation also had a cost.
The Pain-Choice Reminder
Change does not always remove difficulty; sometimes it replaces one kind of difficulty with another. Studying after work is difficult, and so is remaining in a job where you feel stuck. Building a business is difficult, and so is continuing without the independence you wanted. Changing a habit is difficult, and so is living with the reason you wanted to change it.
Compare the cost of your previous situation with the cost of the path you are on now. Then ask:
If I had to choose between these two difficulties, which one moves me toward the life I want?
The answer does not have to be a dramatic yes or no. Think of it as a range:
- Worth continuing: The current difficulty is connected to a direction you still value.
- Worth adjusting: The goal still matters, but the system, pace, or expectations need to change.
- Worth reconsidering: The current path is no longer taking you somewhere you want to go.
This exercise is not about convincing yourself to endure every bad situation. It is a way to separate “this is difficult” from “this is wrong for me.”
Progress does not have to be linear
I originally tried to publish something every day. Then life became busy and I stopped writing for a month. My first reaction was to treat the gap as failure.
But missing a day—or a month—does not erase the direction of travel. I still wanted to write; the daily schedule was the part that was not working. Moving to a weekly cadence let me protect the goal while changing the system around it.
That distinction matters. Discipline can mean returning after an interruption, not pretending interruptions never happen. Resilience can mean adjusting the plan instead of abandoning the reason behind it.
A repeatable process
When a change becomes difficult, I work through five questions:
- What made me choose this change? Describe the situation without rewriting it to make the present look better.
- What did staying the same cost me? Consider time, energy, opportunity, or satisfaction.
- What does the current path cost me? Be honest about the effort and tradeoffs involved.
- Which cost aligns with the direction I want? Difficulty alone does not answer this question.
- Should I continue, adjust, or reconsider? The goal and the system used to reach it are separate decisions.
Sometimes the result is a reminder to keep going. Sometimes it is permission to slow down, rest, or try a different approach. Sometimes it reveals that the path itself needs to change.
The useful part is making that decision deliberately instead of reacting only to how difficult today feels.
A major move was one of the changes that taught me this distinction. I wrote more about that experience in First Year in Cancun.