The choices we make every day look a lot like railroad tracks. Becoming aware of it is the secret to permanently changing your life.
"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
Alan Kay.
Raise your hand if you have never fantasized about wanting change your life overnight?
Sensational lottery winnings, fortuitous encounters with famous people, perhaps an unexpected legacy. We spend so much time fantasizing about how we would like to change our lives that we forget that, not only is it within our power, but we can start doing it today, right now, just long enough to read this article ;-)
The tracks of life
A few weeks ago, returning from vacation, I found myself in the Bologna train station reflecting on the things that had changed in my life in recent years and on those that I still wanted to change. Lost in my thoughts I started staring at the dozens of tracks that crossed at the exit from the station and formed such an intricate network that it was almost impossible to guess their destination.
Those tracks, in my mind, have turned into choices that we do every day (no, I had not done LSD, even if the "Eau de Fogna" perfume of the neighbor actually did not allow lucid reasoning).
But let's get serious again.
Every day we can choose whether or not to respect our good intentions (gym, diet, study, work, etc.), every day we can choose whether or not to commit ourselves to achieving our goals, every day we can choose whether or not to continue chasing our goals. our dreams.
Each of these decisions is like a railway track. When we make our decision, we do not notice much of the difference: the tracks, after all, continue to run close to each other without us really being able to say what their final destination is.
However, as we move away from the station, the different tracks begin to separate clearly, and the more time passes, the more we understand that the choice made is leading us towards a completely different destination from that of the other tracks.
Often, too often, the platform on which we find ourselves leads us to stations that we do not like at all, and then ...
… Let's start staring at the machines out the window, thinking about how lucky they are to be able to change lanes as they please, we look at the trails left in the sky by planes, dreaming of exotic destinations and longing to find ourselves in the clouds.
In short, as usual, we focus on everything we cannot control, forgetting our train, forgetting that we can revolutionize ours "vita" at every railway exchange ...
The railway exchange
The metaphor of the "tracks of life" applies as much to wrong choices, quanto alle right choices. In fact, as happens for the bad habits, of which initially we do not grasp the disastrous consequences, even for the good habits we find it difficult to visualize the benefits in the medium term: one day, struck by the illumination on the Damascus road, we decide to change our life and finally we activate the railway exchange.
Ah… there is nothing that can make us feel better than a "new track"; but the days go by and the new track looks damn like the old one. So, sad and unmotivated, as soon as the opportunity arises, we decide to return to the old and comfortable route that we know so well.
Does this behavior vaguely remind you of someone? Maybe someone you know intimately ?! ;-)
Change your life binary for good
Whenever you have found yourself stuck on a "dead" track and tried to activate the railway exchange, without success, an idea has come forward in your mind: "no matter how hard you try, nothing will ever really change".
There is no bigger dance than you can tell yourself.
Changing your life is not only within your reach, but you have come so close to it for so many times that you don't even realize it anymore. If you can blame yourself for anything, it was not doing… the last mile.
Hey, don't get me wrong! I'm not saying it's easy, but once you get to the other side, I'm sure you'll understand what I'm talking about. For the moment, all I can tell you is that they exist 3 simple steps so as not to repeat the same mistakes over and over:
1. Decide your arrival station. The railway exchanges that we activate during our life (the new habits) can be very powerful tools, but one is not that it can be activating railway exchanges at random, hoping to get "somewhere". You must first decide what your destination is, the station you want to arrive at. If you have a hard time understanding what you want from life or how you can get it, I suggest you read these 2 articles: "How to find the purpose of your life", "How to define a goal".
2. Remember that the railway exchange is in your hands (every day). Many limit themselves to scrupulously carrying out point 1, making beautiful plans for their future, but forgetting that it is this second point that makes the real difference. Print a picture of a railway exchange, write a mantra on the tracks, or a rap on the state railways, I don't care! You just have to remember that you have the ability to completely change direction every single day of your life. Do it, do it now and keep doing it!
3. Don't get anxious about the results. Almost everyone falls for the third point. They get caught up in the initial enthusiasm, they are loaded like springs and then… poof! They deflate immediately. You are not like the others, are you? Have you finally understood that you cannot surrender to the first adversities or the first signs of demotivation ?! Are you not getting the desired results in a short time? Who cares! We're not in some Hollywood movie: this is real life; if you want to achieve results, ambitious results, you must first focus on daily progress and deliberate practice. Do you understand between ?! ;-)
Well, you have a new week ahead of you to put what we have discussed in this article to good use: don't waste it.
