Her goal was to lose weight.

Her plan was to get to the gym three times per week and track her food.

When we met at the end of the week, she’d done neither.

So we tried again. Get to the gym one time, don’t worry about tracking anything. When we came back together the following week, she’d missed on those goals as well. And she was beating herself up, hard, for all that she wasn’t doing. All of the progress that she wasn’t making.

“I know what I need to be doing,” she said. “I’m just not doing it. I just need to try harder.”

And therein lies two of the most common myths when it comes to behavior change. That making change is simple, and that making said change is just a matter of willpower. Those two myths are the root of a great deal of shame when it comes to change.

If we assume that developing a new habit, or breaking an old habit is simple, then we are upset and frustrated with ourselves when we find the change harder to make than when our friend set out to make the same change. There’s something wrong with us. We are incapable of change. We just need to try harder and put in more effort.

The same can be said of believing that our behaviors are simply a matter of willpower. We berate ourselves when we don’t have the discipline to start or stop a new behavior. We just need more willpower.

And yet we already have a ton of willpower – we use that resource to do our jobs, to take care of our families, and to be a responsible member of society. Our struggle to make positive self-change is more complicated than self-control or effort.

There are so many other factors at play.

Going back to the client whose goal it is to get to the gym three times per week and change her diet and who is struggling.

We continued to meet over the course of the next few months – she made some progress, but after six months was disappointed in herself that she hadn’t accomplished more. She hit some goals and missed others and was trying to decide whether or not being healthier was even worth her effort (see the post from a few weeks ago about our monitor).

Over time, our conversations gradually switched from setting SMART goals to talking about other aspects of our life. She talked about how her life-long battle with weight has always hung heavy over her head. We talked about her shame – about her struggle to love herself and her body – we talked about her ambivalence about the process. How she both wanted to lose weight and also feared making some of these changes.

She found a good therapist.

Then she started really doing the hard work, about past traumas and hurt, about grief, about identity. As she had those conversations, she began to find more room in her emotional world to make some of the SMART goals. She got to the gym. And she started taking back her life, piece by piece.

The story isn’t based on any one person. It’s based on hundreds of interactions I’ve had with clients over the years. The thing about this whole behavior change process is that it’s wound up pretty tight with this whole feeling thing. And this emotion thing. And this life thing.

So if you are one of those people reading this post right now and feeling like changing habits should be easier, or you just need to try harder, stop for a minute and challenge those thoughts. Dig a little deeper. Examine your defensiveness. Examine your ambivalence.

And try to give yourself some grace. Because as much as I love Nike, change is never as easy as just doing it.

I slammed the tailgate of the pick up truck shut, and turned around to hug my parents goodbye.

For the second time in five years, I was leaving Western Pennsylvania.

It was September 11th, 2006. I was 29 years old and had rented a room in a dingy apartment on the other side of the tracks in Boston. I was leaving a six-year relationship, working for minimum wage at a camera shop, and headed off to a city where I had only one acquaintance – a woman I’d met exactly three times. (Her name was Sheila. Yes, that Sheila…)

As it turns out, that move was one of the best risks I ever took.

But a few years before, in 2002, I’d packed my Ford Escort and driven to New Mexico for grad school, and that move had crashed and burned. I suffered a major depressive episode, left my position as a teaching assistant at the University of New Mexico, and drove back to Pennsylvania six months later.

Then I went to work as a salad bar attendant…

I have a high tolerance for risk, and I’m grateful for that. I took a risk when, as an incredibly shy 15-year old I played on a traveling softball team. I took a risk by attending a college further away from home, where I didn't know anyone. I took a risk when I joined a convent in 1999 when my friends were asking what the hell was wrong with me.

I think with risk, we sometimes get stuck in the fear. We live in the place of what ifs (which is a great poem by Shel Silverstein), convincing ourselves of all of the things that will go wrong before we even take the first step.

Did you ever talk yourself out of applying for a job because you were afraid you wouldn’t like it? Even though all you were doing was applying for the job?

Sometime in my late teens, I decided that I would say yes to any opportunity that came my way (within reason).

My filter question then was the same that it is now.

What's the worst that could happen?

We might get rejected. We might fail. We might drive home to Pennsylvania with our tails between our legs and have trouble explaining why graduate school didn't work out.

We forget, sometimes, that we can survive feelings. We really can.

In the summer of 2015, I took a risk to quit my job and take an unpaid internship at a gym outside of Boston. As it turns out, that was the best risk I'd ever taken in my life.

Because it led me to where I am now.

Take a minute and list out all of the things that you want to try. List out the fears you have about trying those things.

Then list out all of the possibilities that taking those risks might lead to.

Move through the fear.

What's the worst that can happen?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a rather tongue in cheek post on time management.

Time management isn't necessarily one of my strong suits, but as I continue to find personal and professional projects that I want to tackle, growing my blog audience, writing my next book, mowing the lawn- I need some type of system to help me be productive in a way that feels satisfying to me at the end of the day.

Last Saturday, I found myself in the middle of a typical morning - brain dumping all of the tasks I wanted to tackle while I drank my coffee - then feeling paralyzed at the thought of choosing which place to start.

Typically, after this kind of a brain dump, I'd eventually pick one task, work on it for an hour or so, get tired or bored, lay down to take a nap, and that would be the end of it. I often wouldn’t get very far with my list. I would try to tackle the entire project in one go, but when I either got bored or ran out of steam, I would fizzle out and so would the rest of plans. Then I'd get to the end of the day feeling frustrated with myself for not having done more when I had the chance.

But last Saturday, with the idea of the five minute action in mind, I sat down at my desk, set a timer for 10 minutes, and started.

I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I sat down to write with the timer on my desk. It was tough to sit there, but after about five minutes, I started to write. When the timer went off, I’d started to write and so I set the timer again. After 30 minutes, I was getting antsy, so I got up from my desk.

Then I went to the next task. Cleaning out my clothes in the spare room felt like a monumental task, but I took my phone with me, set the timer, and just started. I started. That was the key. (Isn’t that always the key? And yet doesn’t it always feel so hard?) Once again, I reset the timer multiple times before moving on to my next task.

I’ve always joked that I'm a commitment-phobe - not with relationships, but certainly with my time. If you want to see me truly unhappy, lock me into doing one thing for several hours (except for going to a baseball game). I'm not wired like that. I don't think in a linear fashion, and I certainly don't like to work in a linear fashion. I'm scattered. I like variety - a lot of it.

And I found that using a 10 minute timer as my gauge worked with my personality and not against it.

Sure I did several tasks for 30 minutes or more, but I only made 10 minute commitments. Three-10 minute commitments felt more manageable to me than one 30 minute chunk.

For me, life always works better when I embrace my personality and tendencies and work with who I am - not trying to change who I am, but finding subtle ways to be the best version of me. I'll never be Marie Kondo (yes those socks bring me joy!!!), but I can find a way to be more productive in a manner that works and feels good to me.

I don’t know if this 10 minute thing will work for you. Heck, I don’t know how long it will work for me. But I’m going to ride the wave and see how far it takes me.