Body for Life champion Artemis shares that when people say they are quitting, they are not really quitting. Instead they are distancing themselves so that when they do quit in a few weeks or months it won’t feel like they are giving anything up. You can find your own Body for Life group in Cleveland, Ohio.
Maybe they are checking out of work or a relationship, or maybe they are giving up on a personal growth program or an exercise routine or anything else. To stop in the moment is often too uncomfortable, so they slowly give up on their commitment until they ease their way out of it and subtly leave behind their goal and in this manner it is not painful to quit, the desire just gradually fades away.
It is a dangerous and subtle trap many fall into. One moment a person is moving towards a desired outcome, the next they are slowly moving away from it and don’t even recognize it. This is one of the reasons that New Year’s resolutions are broken by 95% of people by the end of January. It is a slippery slope to begin believing, “I will start tomorrow.” Once tomorrow comes things are put on hold until the next day, ad infinitum.
In many cultures, both ancient and today, people use a greeting from the Hebrew word Shalom. It is often found in sacred scriptures and is sometimes translated as peace. A more complete translation of Shalom is, “Nothing broken, nothing missing.”
Whether you speak the word to another or simply to yourself, the meaning is deep and profound. Far more than a greeting, it is a reflection of wholeness, a peace that is deeply felt where nothing is missing and nothing is broken in one’s heart and attitude and life. It is the ultimate expression of fulfillment.
When people slowly begin to quit on themselves or others, they are missing Shalom. The quickest way to regain a sense of this peace is by reflecting on the wonders that one has already experienced and will receive upon completion of a goal.
Marketing expert Eban Pagan shares that mindset is everything. It is the inner game that needs to be mastered, that needs to receive most of our energy and attention. A reason it becomes easy to distance one’s self is that in our mind we begin to rationalize why we are checking out, so we become justified in our beliefs.
It is important to resist lazy thinking, to avoid the trap of giving up that is so easy to fall into, and instead to pursue deep Shalom so that we can rightly say of our life, nothing missing, nothing broken.
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