If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
- African proverb
2020 is a special year. It was bound to be special as the beginning of a new decade. It is turning out to be special for much more than that. During the first 4 months of the year, I think we all thought at some point that maybe, just maybe, we could scrap 2020 and try again. All plans were cancelled, all possibilities to make new plans were put on hold, social gatherings were forbidden and life seemed to have just stop. So yes, I thought that maybe we could start over and be given a new chance at this year that seemed to be doomed. Then the situation started to get a bit better in some countries, people were allowed outside their home once again and life seemed to be slowly starting again. Then tragedy stroke and it was like the gate of hell opened once more in the US. I do not have the words to express myself on this, but I wanted to mention it to draw attention to what should be the biggest lesson of 2020: we cannot survive on our own.
It’s not a brand-new teaching and it is not a revolutionary one. The human species is a cooperative one and it would not have succeeded without collective actions (if we can call ourselves a “success” – it’s fairly debatable at the moment I would say). Connectivity got us through the lockdown, togetherness will help us move forward. This is true whatever it is we want to accomplish, whether it is changing a failing system or self-improving: we go further together. Oh yes, that’s where I’m going today: self-improvement is more successful when done with a friend.
Imagine this: you wake up one day and you say to yourself: “no more, today is the first day of the rest of my life, I will be better and workout and better myself”. You decide to do a bit of introspection and identify the things about yourself or your life you would like to change, and you create a list of those things. Maybe you manage to create different categories such as “health”, “work”, “lifestyle”. Then you try and think of a timeline for those things you want to change: how fast can you reasonably lose those 10kg you want to get rid of? How long do you give yourself to reorganise your interior? Once the timeline is set, you need an action plan: how are you going to reach your goal? Where do you start? That is the trickiest part for me. There are so many information out there that it can be daunting to know where to start. And that’s when your friends can be super helpful.
If you are able to get one of your friends on board with you, the chance of success increases instantly. It is a lot easier to stay motivated when you’re not alone because if one of you feels down, the other one can cheer them up! That’s what got me to quit smoking: I had the idea to do it, I knew it wasn’t the best of my habits, but I was lacking motivation. Then my other smoking friend suggested we used the lockdown as a time to quit; with less (i.e., non) social time, we had less temptation to smoke. Knowing I wasn’t alone helped a lot. It’s the same when working out: having someone there with you can definitely help you push yourself a bit more or help you know when to stop.
Moreover, if you make plans to work out with a friend, you are less likely to cancel last minute. The fear of letting a friend down is a much better motivator than the fear to let oneself down – your brain has many compensatory beliefs to help us cope with that (you know that when you tell yourself that sure you can have a second slice of cake as you worked out before). Having a workout buddy makes you accountable and you are more likely to build up a routine.
Any change you want to make to your lifestyle, or your routine/health/physical appearance, should be for your own personal benefit, but no one says you have to walk the path alone. By chatting with your friends, you get to learn about what works for them. You get to know how they build up their work out routine or changed their diet or educated themselves on this or that topic. For instance, you are curious about intermittent fasting and its potential benefits – where do you start to educate yourself? Do you go on Instagram and start following hashtag and influencers? Do you look for scientific articles? How do you know which app might be most helpful?
Usually, it will a matter of trial-and-error: you won’t know until you’ve tried. Which means you might fail a few times before finding what works for you. That can be very daunting and slightly demotivating. But if you have a friend to go through this with you, or that went through it already, then you have someone to chat with, to debate with, to figure things out with. Use your friends as thinking board. Nothing works better than 2 brains working together… or multiple 2 brains working together! It might not give you the entire solution, but it provides a starting point and allows you to reflect along the way.
Change does not happen in one day. I don’t think today’s post was as informative or as novel as other I’ve done in the past, but I just think that sometimes, it is good to be reminded of simple truth. Change does not happen in one day. Change is not a one-person thing. Knowing what changes you want for yourself or for the world around you is only the first step: who are you going to take on the journey with you?
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