Have you ever experienced a feeling where you are kind of living in two worlds at the same time and those worlds collide with each other at some level?
It’s like a constant state of being stressed out because you are not living the one particular way – even if you wanted to.
Also, It’s like an internal battle between something new and old where the new represents the good and the old represents something bad (or otherwise to be avoided) from the past.
All this internal battle is also causing you to blame yourself. You try desperately to live the new way, but the old world is pulling you back to its nasty habits, and so you blame yourself for this happening.
Living on the fence is burning you inside and the blame will follow you forever if you are not willing to make changes to your life.
For the sake of explaining the topic better, let me introduce you to Mark. He is into sports, but as his example demonstrates, he is clearly living on the fence and is afraid to jump off it.
Example: Mark loved sports and he was especially into swimming.
Although he lived a very active life and exercised many times per week, his eating habits were not the best: he loved sugary foods and junk food. In fact, he was a bit overweight because of the bad eating habits.
Mark had constant difficulties in fixing his diet. At the same time, he knew that being a top-performing athlete was not possible without nutritional changes in his life.
This constant battle between two worlds – being an athlete (the good) and living carelessly (the bad) – was driving him nuts. Yet, he seemed to keep up with this lifestyle day after day.
What do you really want?
So why do you like to live on the fence? Why not just jump completely to the other side of it?
First, you are having a hard time making decisions. The decisions are related to the role you want to live with in the future and the way you have been acting based on the chosen role. Because you haven’t made a decision to move from one world to another, you keep living on the fence.
Next, you are living without any discipline. This discipline is one ingredient of creating a series of habits, which could make your everyday life in your new role much easier. Even if habits shouldn’t be solely based on the discipline, using that in small amounts may be required to ensure that the new way of living turns into success.
Finally, none of your decisions, habits or roles are tied into compelling goals: why do you want to step off the fence? How is your life going to change (for the better)? What is the final outcome of living only one role instead of many?
Only you know the answers to those questions and only you can define the desired outcome.
Example: The problem with Mark was that he liked to keep the things in both worlds present in his life. Even if he was exercising, he still liked to eat unhealthy foods.
Because of this indecisiveness, he was living on the fence and wasn’t ready to make a decision – did he want to start living the 100% healthy life or not?
His daily bad eating habits were present in his daily life and all the attempts to switch from an unhealthy to a healthy diet were failing every time.
On top of everything, he had to define a compelling goal so that the jump off the fence would be as easy as possible. He knew that without that, it would be impossible to form the new and healthy eating habits.
One big delayed decision
The ultimate reason why you are not willing to get off the fence is based on fear.
You feel that you are missing out on something important when you make a big decision in your life and move from the old to the new. At the same time, you understand that this decision would change the course of your life for the better in the long run, thus diminishing the internal conflicts that you now have.
You are also afraid of the change in general. You think that your life changes too much and certain things that you enjoy will be gone forever.
It’s also about the people: what are you thinking of others and what they think of you after the change. You may think that it’s not possible to have a life change and hang out with the same people as before.
When you look at these reasons, is it any wonder that you are unable to make the jump?
Example: Mark was hesitant to make the decision to change the faulty aspect of his life: his unhealthy eating habits. The primary reason was that he felt he was leaving something unique behind him and he would never be able to get them back.
He also felt that he was going to lose at least some of his friends who were not as disciplined eaters as he would be. For example, his friends would go out and grab a beer and some pizza every now and then and Mark felt he wouldn’t be able to join them (he would be tempted to eat and drink the same way as his friends).
Besides, it seemed that they were able to enjoy that life much better, because they were able to eat sweets, junk food and other unhealthy stuff – something that he wasn’t able to do.
Let you be the salesperson and the client – at the same time
In order to make profound changes in one’s life, sometimes some radical moves have to be made.
It could mean giving up on certain old mindsets and habits completely, while in some other cases those can be carried along, but with moderation.
Whatever the situation is, you have to sell the idea to yourself, which makes you both a salesperson and a client.
You have to understand that living on the fence is not the right way to live. You are stressing and burning yourself inside needlessly. The longer you keep living on the fence, the longer the internal conflict is going to be present.
You’ll also have to fully understand the benefits of changing your life. Sometimes the effects may be visible in the long term and this is important to internalize before making the change.
It is also important to keep the benefits of a change somewhere visible, so that you are constantly being reminded of them. This helps to deal with the difficult times when you feel like quitting.
Once you have internalized the benefits, you are like a salesperson who has just completed a sale: the client had a problem, but you offered a compelling solution to it, so the client bought the solution and client’s life became better and more fulfilling.
When you have a compelling reason to make the change, you’ll have to revise your current habits and mindsets. If you are not making this step, jumping off the fence is very hard, sometimes even impossible.
These habits and mindsets are the drivers in the daily actions you take and the decisions you make.
Example: Mark knew that he couldn’t live like this anymore and he had to change his lifestyle for good. Otherwise all the exercising was time wasted and he wasn’t going to be able to compete against the others.
He was tired of being stressed over his eating and he also knew that the only way to stop the feeling was to make a change in his diet.
His goal was to drop some weight in the process, but he understood that this would take some time, and that it might be awhile until he was able to see any tangible results.
He had to redefine some of the habits he was currently living by, specifically the eating ones. He also changed his views of the change and how it would affect the rest of his life. He came to realize that he could allow himself to eat unhealthy at times and with moderation.
The main point was to keep the 80/20 ratio in his eating: eating healthy 80% of the time while eating more freely for the 20% of the time.
It’s time to jump off the fence and make a perfect landing to the other side
Leave the fence behind you after taking these steps:
1. Awareness. It’s important to understand what is causing internal conflicts inside you as long as you haven’t made a decision to change one or several aspects of your life.
2. Change is a long term project. Sometimes the changes you make may not be visible immediately. Rather, they are effective in the long term.
This is important to realize before you start making the change. For instance, if you are trying to lose weight, you are not going to get the results overnight. Instead, those wanted results may be present in 6 months after you start your healthier diet.
3. Sell the idea to yourself. It is absolutely crucial to sell the idea and the benefits of the change to yourself before starting it. Otherwise making a change becomes very difficult.
Know what you are getting into in advance, but also, understand that there is a reward when making a successful switch from one world to another.
4. Fully commit. Once you have sold yourself on the idea of a change, make a decision to fully commit to the process. Don’t make any light decisions – make a decision that you can respect.
In order to make the change happen, you have to stand behind it 100%. Otherwise you are going to face hard times during the process.
5. Align your habits and mindsets. It’s those daily habits and mindsets that dictate the decisions we make. Unfortunately, you cannot make a change while keeping old habits and mindsets.
Be ready to revamp those daily habits and more importantly, the mindsets that form the habits. Only in that way can you make permanent changes in your life – and leave the fence behind.
Example: Mark was ready to leave the internal conflicts behind him. He understood that healthy eating habits were preventing him from becoming a top swimmer in his age group. Also, he realized that he could finally get the body he has dreamed about – at the age of 50 – if he changed his eating habits.
He clipped off some pictures of lean swimmers from a swimming magazine he used to read and put those pictures onto his refrigerator door. That way he was constantly reminded of the end result he was after.
At the same time, Mark knew that this was going to be a long journey. He wasn’t able to see any results anytime soon. He knew that there would be internal resistance, however, as he was steering his life away from unhealthy eating habits to healthier ones.
Mark decided to start his change right away. However, he didn’t want to make big changes all at once. He sat down and made some plans about the eating rhythm, healthy snacks or “cheat days” (when he allowed eating more freely).
He decided to implement the replacement habit: whenever he was tempted to eat unhealthy stuff, he took the healthy option instead. For example, when others were eating some chocolate at the coffee table at work, he pulled out his small bag of carrots and drank some green tea instead.
Although his motivation was tested at times, he remembered those lean swimmer pictures on his refrigerator door and with a bit of self-discipline, he was able to pass the biggest temptations he had.
Finally, 8 months later, he woke up and looked at himself in the mirror: he loved what he saw! All the extra fat was gone and he felt spectacular!
He had stepped off the fence for good and felt good. He had made the change!
Over to you: Have you been on the fence on some matters? How did you step off the fence? What changes did you have to do to your life?
Please leave a comment and share the experiences and tips with the rest of us.
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Timo Kiander, a.k.a. Productive Superdad, teaches WAHD superdad productivity for work at home dads. Connect with him here.