If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass
We all experience struggles. Some are seemingly insurmountable. Others, like mine, are comparatively small. Regardless of their scale, it’s what we learn from our struggles that counts.
Mine began while at university in London. Originally from a small town in the Welsh valleys, the move to the big city was a scary one for me.
A mum’s boy at heart, I didn’t deal well with being so far away from home. I’m also an introvert who didn’t embrace the uni lifestyle of drinking to failure, so I didn’t make many friends early on.
The workload was tough too, and the course content didn’t inspire me one bit. I had never really considered what I wanted out of life, but I quickly discovered that rocks and complex math weren’t part it. Still, I pushed through, partly because I was stubborn but mainly because I was scared to fail.
As I said, my struggles weren’t monumental. My first-world problems pale in comparison to others, but at the time it was hard to see past them. I felt trapped and stressed out.
As a coping mechanism for the stress, I turned to my safe haven: sports. Martial arts, football, weight lifting—anything that allowed my brain to shut off temporarily.
What started as an escape quickly became unhealthy. Training sometimes three times a day was only adding to the problem, and eventually things broke down.
I started developing a mouthful of painful ulcers regularly, making it difficult to talk and eat. They came with bouts of fatigue and digestive issues too, and one particularly nasty flare up led to a hospital visit.
A few blood tests and examinations later, the news came back that I likely had Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory condition that can affect any part of the digestive tract (from the mouth, to the other end).
Crohn’s can be pretty miserable. Oftentimes, sufferers face a lifetime of medications and surgery. I knew that wasn’t a path I wanted. I decided right then (in a naïve and almost boisterous manner) that Crohn’s or not, I would beat this myself.
I took a step back to examine the big picture.
In my eyes, I had these habits that were making me ill and keeping me on a path that I didn’t want. To change my trajectory, I just needed to alter my habits. If only it was that simple…
I soon found out the hard way that habit changing isn’t the easiest pastime. After many failed attempts, I always came back to the same question: How can we create habits that are lasting rather than ones that phase out after a few weeks?
Eventually, through trial and error, I was able to come up with a few answers, and gradually began transforming my life. I started eating a plant-based diet, and altered how I trained, which gave me more energy.
I read more, worried less, and meditated regularly, which reduced my stress levels and allowed me to see more clearly the road I wanted to take.
Fast forward a few years to the present day, things have vastly improved. Although I still occasionally get health issues, the symptoms are much easier to deal with.
Despite repeated blood tests and investigations, I haven’t been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Maybe it was an overzealous initial prognosis, or perhaps I dodged a bullet by changing my habits. Either way, I’m happy that I went through the struggle. It taught me a lot, and allowed me to create the life I‘m living today.
If you’re feeling a little lost right now, or you’re struggling to implement changes, you may benefit from applying these five important lessons I’ve learned about forming habits.