Regardless of your age, if you’re interested in success and maximizing your human potential, most of us can look back at our younger selves and see the progress that we’ve made. Doesn’t that feel good?

But sometimes, usually during periods of high stress, or a lot of change, we feel more like this quote from well known American poet Robert Frost, “I have miles to go before I sleep.” These are periods that I call jet lag, when we get pulled back into old familiar patterns, mostly extinct behaviours, which rarely show up any more.

The following story about my coaching client Lisa (not her real name) illustrates this point perfectly. Lisa went home for a family reunion and before you could say, “Holy time warp Batman,” she found herself behaving in a way that used to be normal for her, in ways that she thought she’d outgrown.

Despite all the changes she’d made in her life and all the work she’d done on herself, she found herself cascading down into a mini depression over this regressive behaviour. It felt like she was on autopilot, like the behaviours were entirely beyond her control. And after all the personal growth she’d done, she bemoaned to me. Lisa was surprised to find that the pull of years of habit was more powerful than the world she had created for herself. And more powerful than the world she strives to and for the most part lives in today.

As I told Lisa, change is usually like that, it’s two steps forward and one step back, until the new pattern is cemented. As you’re making the change, you have to be very, very diligent and aware of your thoughts, emotions and behaviours, especially in the areas where you feel most challenged. Because Lisa hadn’t been home in a couple of years and had only had practice being the new her on the phone, she hadn’t had the physical experience of seeing herself relate with her family in a new and improved way. This visit was longer than the shortish conversations she’d had with her family on the phone. Consequently, she she fell back into an old pattern when she was in their physical presence again. Had she had more physical visits since initiating the changes, she would have built up new family relationship muscles and would have caught her slide into old behaviours and thought patterns a lot sooner because of those muscles new strength.

The point is this: change is a process, not an event. It takes time to become the new you. Be excited about who you’ll be in 10 years time. But remember, between now and then, if you’re like many of us who want to maximize their human potential, you’ll feel like you have have miles to go before you sleep and a lot of practicing to do. While you’re practicing, it won’t make the effort any easier if you berate yourself for falling back toward the familiar.

Keep in mind that when you first learned how to walk, you took a step, fell, cried and then picked yourself up to try it all again. Over time, that first step began two, and eventually you found running easy. Be kind to yourself and before you learn how to run, celebrate the trip, not just the destination.

Take Action Challenge

Look at the major areas of your life: employment, health, family, friends, fun and recreation, physical environment, personal growth, money, and significant other/romance. Identify the area or areas that are most challenging for you. Is it your weight, how you spend money, or something else? Think about where you were in that area two years ago and where you are today. And this is important, don’t fixate on where you’re headed but haven’t arrived yet.

Instead, look at where you are and what you’ve achieved. Once you’ve done that, acknowledge how far you’ve come by doing something special for yourself: soaking in a hot, bubbly tub with candles around you; celebrating with a friend, or anything else that is fun and has meaning to you. Social scientists tell us that our brain likes it when we reward ourselves; it makes us want to achieve more. So don’t think of it as an indulgence, but as a necessary part of your success journey.

The point is to look at your progress and to acknowledge that you and all of us are works in progress. As long as you’re growing and learning, expanding your comfort zone and trying to become self-actualized, there will always be more to do. And as Martha Stewart is fond of saying, “It’s a good thing.”