I wanted to dive into this concept more.
The more successful you are, the harder it can be to change.
When things aren’t working for us, it’s often easier to see that we need to adopt new habits because we know we aren’t getting the results we desire.
However, what about if our approach has generally worked up until now? It is natural to think that what you’re doing is productive and you should keep doing it. That may be the case - until it’s not anymore.
I see this a lot with hard charging, type A individuals (myself included) who are used to working hard and getting what they want - until they run into a goal that isn’t linear and isn’t just about “putting in the work”. It requires a different strategy altogether.
How do you know when it is time to disrupt yourself?
It could be any of the following:
a) your approach is exhausting you
b) your approach seems to work well in most domains of life, but there is one particular area that’s evading you (I often see this with fertility clients) or
c) you are hitting a plateau and have the sense that there’s another way to break through
It may be the case that the singular approach we have been taking for years is still a viable strategy, but not for this particular goal or this particular life stage. We need to add more tools in the toolkit, so to say. These tools could be mental models, techniques, resources, etc.
When we reach a crossroads between an old way of being and a new way of being, the transition can be challenging. It often requires shedding an old identity to make way for the new one. It can shake things up for a while, but you often get the “best of both” on the other side.