Upgrade your life
- 14 hours ago
- 3 min read
A few years ago, I planned a holiday in Thailand. This was back in the days when people used travel agents to book flights and hotels.
A couple of weeks before the departure date, the agent called me, rather sheepishly, to apologise that they had forgotten to confirm the outbound flight and now the plane was full.
Not the update I was expecting.
For a solution, they offered me two options.
Fly 24 hours earlier and extend the holiday by one night, which they would cover the cost of
Or
Fly 24 hours later, thus losing a day of the holiday, BUT, travel first class, at no extra cost
I needed about 0.001 seconds to think that one over.
I love Thailand and I love holidays but I’m really not a fan of taking the train to Heathrow, shuffling around the airport killing time for ages after checking in, or spending 14 hours sitting bolt upright in an uncomfortable seat, wide awake with my legs going numb.
Excited as I was to get to the destination, an upgrade to the journey was one of the best gifts I ever had, even if it meant waiting 24-hours to get under way.
Thankfully, a similar gift is available to all of us.
Sort of...
When thinking about success with health, happiness and high performance, most people immediately begin thinking about the mid to long term future.
Looking good, feeling great and performing to the best of their abilities is a way of operating they'll hopefully arrive at some months or even years down the line.
But if we only focus on what might be possible in the longer term, it’s not very motivating for changing our behaviour today.
The other thing that crosses their mind is that achieving optimum health and happiness can feel like a big project. Something they’ll need to allocate plenty of time and resources to. When circumstances allow them to get around to it. Hopefully.
The challenge with this outlook is that if you keep focusing on all the changes you’d like to make in order to do the job properly, you generally conclude that you’re too busy right now to tackle the full project so you delay getting started with any of it.
But if you don’t get started, you simply perpetuate a current routine that doesn’t result in you performing at your best or feeling good about yourself.
This you could look at as travelling along the journey of life, sitting towards the back of the plane. You know you'll arrive at your destination, but getting there isn't a particularly enjoyable process.
The destination, in this case, health, wellness, happiness and peak performance, will come at some point in the long term, but for the moment we'll tolerate life not being as good as it could be.
But life isn’t just about destinations. What if it’s possible to upgrade our journey through every single day?
This is where unpacking the wider concept of healthy habits comes in. We must break things down to a size whereby getting started with what serves us better today is appealing. Exciting even.
Quick action leads to quick results which leads to motivation, progress and sustainable results.
The bonus is that when you upgrade the journey, the destination always arrives more quickly.
Rather than suffering the short term and wanting it to be over so we can get to the good stuff, we should be looking to do everything we can to feel great every single day.
That way we’ll want days and weeks to move slowly because we’re enjoying them. Not to disappear because they’re a chore.
In the same way that my 14 hours in first class didn’t feel anywhere near long enough!
Spend a moment now identifying one change you can make today that will feel like a swift and simple upgrade to your current routine.
If you'd like a little inspiration, check out:
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