341. set sail

Change is hard because it comes with a necessary acceptance that who you are isn’t who you want to be. It’s a constant battle with your ego which is always trying to bring you back to who you are right now, even if it is out of alignment with what you say you want. It’s a safety mechanism keeping you within familiar territory. So, while your actions may look like self-destruction on the outside, they’re actually your subconscious working to return you to a familiar version of yourself, or a place where it feels most comfortable.

There’s a saying that goes, “a ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for.”  We are all on our own ship, possessing the possibility of journeying toward the person we wish to become. That journey requires us to embrace discomfort. To sail just far enough away from the harbor that we can throw out an anchor and sit long enough in a certain position that we realize it’s not so bad after all. And, then doing it all over again, until we arrive at the place where we initially set out to discover. 

For systemic change to happen, progress has to be sustainable. It will require you to throw out an anchor along the way, reassuring yourself that the distance you’ve traveled — where you are today, while frightening new — is now who you are and choose to be. It will feel chaotic because waves of uncertainty will challenge your choices for attempting to break old patterns. It will feel unfamiliar because you are traveling outside the boundaries of the map you once used to guide your life. But you have to be okay with the discomfort of sailing outside the boundaries of the map you had for yourself so that you can start charting the new territory of the person you wish to become.