Over the last few months I have been sharing advice on a variety of ways that you can help to improve your life, start something new, change habits, view situations differently etc.
I get a lot of feedback from these emails…….which I love, keep the comments coming! :). People assume that I am living this ‘perfect’ life, however, of course that is not entirely true! The ideas and thoughts expressed in these emails are things that I do totally believe will help improve ourselves and I do aspire to achieving them. But, I am just like you…….sometimes ,I can be really good about sticking with all the things I believe in and other times I can’t achieve any of it!
We are all like that, the point is we cannot do everything we are supposed to do all the time – we are just not built that way. So, what I do is I apply the 80/20 rule to all the areas of my life. That means that 80% of the time I will eat clean and 20% I will eat chocolate/cake/ junk and/or drink alcohol. 80% of the time I will stick to the things I know help me achieve a better life, like exercise/meditation/ changing my thought process, but 20% of the time I simply don’t manage it.
Using this 80/20 rule is great, as it takes away the useless emotion of guilt if we do not achieve something we set out to achieve. It also means that we haven’t failed, so we don’t give up, we simply carry on……..yes sometimes the balance tips a little towards 70/30 or 90/10, but that’s fine, it’s the principle that’s important.
Knowing that you can’t fail when you apply the 80/20 rule gives you a great sense of freedom and allows you to try things that maybe you wouldn’t have done before as you might have thought it would be impossible for you to achieve. It gives you permission to not be perfect….the perfect parent, partner, friend, work colleague, but to simply be the best that you can be at that time.
So, remember we are human, that’s what makes us all so great, apply the 80/20 rule to your life and notice how much more achievable it all becomes 🙂