One bite at a time! Old joke. Sage advice. And it applies to what most people are going through right now in terms of their lives, their health, their relationships and their money.
People are looking for miracles of a large scale to fix their problems. That simply isn’t how it works. There are no quick fixes – no miracles – no overnight successes – no silver bullets.
When you suddenly look in the mirror and see a big fat person looking back at you – it should hit you that you didn’t get fat overnight. But seeing yourself like that can create a sense of urgency in you that demands action. At that point, you want the old you back as quickly as you can find them so you start on a program to get back to the old self you used to be. Sadly, many people go to drastic measures and expect all the fat to drop off immediately. So they indulge in ridiculous diets that put their health at risk or have liposuction or gastric bypass surgery. Any sane person realizes that long-term weight loss doesn’t work that way. That is why most of those approaches don’t yield long term change. You didn’t gain the weight overnight and you aren’t going to lose it all overnight. It is going to take time. Planning. There will be ups and downs. There will be setbacks. You will be disappointed and disillusioned. You will want to give up. But you know if you just keep your head down and stay focused, eventually the weight will come off.
That is how you quit smoking. It’s how you quit drinking. It is the basis of every 12 step program. “One day at a time.”
It is exactly how you fix relationships too. Years ago, wife and I had a time when we almost got divorced. We didn’t want one and we loved each other but we couldn’t seem to figure out a way to stay together happily. Too much pain, too much hurt, too much anger, too much pride – you name it, we had it. We talked and cried and realized that we didn’t want to divorce and wanted our happy, loving relationship back the way it used to be. If you have ever been in a relationship that was crumbling, you know how desperate you can be to keep it together. What we really wanted to do was to jump back to the good times or jump ahead to get past it all of the pain and move on. But that isn’t how it works. You have to get through your problems one day at a time. Sometimes, in relationships, one minute at a time. So that was what we tried to do: make it a good minute. Then stack that minute onto the next good minute until you are finally able to have a good hour. Then a good day and eventually, one minute at a time, you end up with a good week. Then a month. Then a year. Until fifteen years later you are still together. We had setbacks. We were disappointed and tempted to give up, but we stuck with it one minute at a time.
Many people are in big trouble financially. They didn’t get in trouble overnight. They got there because of years of irresponsible behavior. They are going to have to work their way out of it one bite at a time. Every time they get a bill, they are going to pay just a little more until they eventually are able to eat away at that bill until it is gone. Typically, that isn’t the way they want to do it. They want a quick fix so they resort to credit scams, consolidation or bankruptcy looking to relieve the pain with an immediate fix. This stuff rarely fixes the real problem of irresponsibility. Irresponsible behavior is fixed slowly by putting one little responsible act on top of another responsible act until you end up living a responsible life.
Our government wants to fix our economic mess, our healthcare crisis, energy problems, our dependence on foreign oil, social security, education and foreign relations. I am proud they are trying and applaud what I consider to be a good start and an ambitious effort. These fixes are going to take a long time to make happen. Like every example I have given, we didn’t get in the mess we are in overnight, and we aren’t going to fix it overnight either. We certainly aren’t going to fix it in the first 2 months of a new administration. All of this is going to take time. People are going to need to be patient. This is going to be a slow process with ups and downs, setbacks and disappointments. But if we all keep our heads down, stay focused and keep our eyes on the goal, we can get there.
FACEBOOK: Sign up as my friend and join the Larry Winget Unofficial Fan Club.
Brand new product released this week. The PBS special, Success Is Your Own Fault and a bonus DVD, Larry: Unplugged, Unleashed & Out of Control! is available NOW. Go to the Larry store on my website.
http://www.larrywinget.com/dvd.html
Special introductory pricing of only $49.95! Save $50 off the normal price of $99.95. Two full length television quality DVDs for $49.95.
Thanks, Larry, really good column today, I really needed to read this-you are absolutely right-good, solid, plain, common sense!
Have a great weekend!
Ross
Larry, I used to adhere to the philosophy of living life a day at a time. Now I take it in 15-minute increments. When it all seems overwhelming, I focus on something for that short period of time, whether it’s looking over finances, planning meals before a grocery trip, taking a brief walk ’round the neighborhood, or even learning a few new words of Spanish and a some advanced features of PowerPoint.
No quick fixes, but a bunch of little ones that add up to a lot over time.
Thanks Larry for a great post!
Larry,
Thanks for the no-nonsense-commonsense ideas that seem to be lacking these days from almost everyone. You help me keep my head in the game, thanks for the great books, the great advice and the great thoughts, I will keep reading and passing on the great advice. (Of course the best advice I can give is to buy your books)
I like your style my friend. Like most people, I too have my personal struggles right now and keeping my head in a focused and healthy mindset isn’t always easy. It’s simple, but not easy. That’s what most people have to understand, and that is what you do best. “Keep it simple and hold yourself accountable…period”, I say. I appreciate you and all your information. With all the books, tapes and Cds that I have invested in over the years and continue to invest in…and make no mistake they all have a message I need to hear from time to time…yours is a message of taking self responsibility. Thank you for that, hope we meet someday on good terms. 😉
Great article. The other problem creating issue is avoidance. If you don’t pay your parking ticket and just put it in a drawer. That $15 fine turns into $30 then $45 then $60 and then there’s a boot on your car, then it’s towed and impounded…. all over $15 that was ignored. WE create our elephants.
Larry, I’m a teacher because I believe one of the greatest gifts you can give someone, other than being a parent, is to teach them something. To help them help themselves. As a “life coach” you do that all the time. I usually don’t like a lot of self-help books but yours were a breath of fresh air years ago when I was working myself out of debt incurred by personal and business failures. I screwed up my job and my first marriage was dead. And yes, it takes time. It took me years to dig out of financial and personal ruin. Now I’m happily remarried, in a job I love, with hardly any debt other than a mortgage that we can afford. But it takes time and effort. I wish more of the students I teach understood this.
People need to take care of their problems when it happens don’t ignore them…they are not going away. They will only get worse! A Magic Fairy will never come…
Larry,
Wisdom comes in small bites as well. So thanks for your insight to get outta sight results. Our little company specializes in helping sales organizations achieve consistent and predictable results. Often they expect us to show up with pixie dust to fix the problem overnight. As with your comments about people not getting into their current condition overnight holds true for a sales group that is in the dumper. They didn’t get there in one day, one week, one month or one quarter. It takes us a minimum of a year to begin to get them functional again. And it happens a bite at a time.
Thanks Larry! It’s a great article… I’ll forward it to my bro to inspire him.
Great post. In fact, I recently talked about this same subject on my blog.
I think the most damaging belief in self-help today is that change can be instantaneous. I believe you can have an instantaneous change of MIND (in fact, it doesn’t happen any other way), but the physical stuff requires a sense of daily-ness, and that true happens in small increments that add up over time.
Great post. I’m a big fan. 😀
Larry,
Great post. I agree that it takes time, but as a society we all want that quick fix. My sister had gastric bypass surgery and did well for a year, but then she started back to her old eating habits. It is because she hasn’t dealt with the reasons why she eats.
I am working on getting out of debt, but it doesn’t happen overnight. I have to change my behaviors and spend less than what I make. Keep up the good work. You are one of the really good guys.
There’s only one audiotape you need… People are idiots and I can prove it. Have listened to it 3 times and I’m on my fourth one… Can only say how true it is… Have now changed my emails I send to people in my business. I’ve changed how I respond to people and how I write my own material… It’s a whole school of thought that makes you WORK and DO IT… You deserve success Larry, you are 100% right 🙂
– Chris
People of today do not put a value on what they have. They buy big homes,oops can’t make the payments or it is too hard to maintain so we let it run down and let the bank take it back.They go out and charge great amounts on their credit cards,oops can’t pay that back,so lets just declare bankruptcy.
People teach your children the value of the things they own and maybe they will grow up to be responsible adults. I am done bailing out all of the slackers in this world.