Why Being Complacent Might be your Biggest Mistake

Being comfortable and being secure in where you are at in life is probably a wonderful thing – right? For most people, it essentially means that you are happy – you are doing something right, and in some cases, it means that you should stay right where you are.

After all, who wants change? It’s really difficult – you work .. you have kids, you have a busy life.  Change is not easily introduced or dealt with. And unwillingness to change essentially leads to complacency with where you are.

I’ll admit – change is hard. Who wants to change, when it’s too easy just to stay where you are?

How Complacency Leads to Change

It’s been quite a while since we have been married – and back when we first tied the knot, I will not forget what great shape both of us were in. David used to say he could eat anything he wanted – he had a high metabolism – calories burned off quick. Over the years, we really didn’t give any thought to the food we ate. If it was cheap, we were right there ~ after all, making our paycheck stretch was important, and we had a small but growing family.

A deployment to Iraq 10 years later led to some rather large issues with anxiety and panic attacks ~ doctor visits were a regular, prescriptions soon followed. That was the norm – or so we thought. It wasn’t long before those panic attacks led to other health issues, and a wake up call that made both of us look at better ways to care for the issues other than regular doctor trips & pharmacy medications. We knew that a change in diet could help, but we didn’t realize just how much of a positive effect it would make. 

Our shopping habits changed. And as a result, you may have seen a rather huge change on our blog – which was hard – hard for us to make, and hard for many to understand.

After LOTS of reading, and endless self research, we made some pretty big dietary changes to ditch much of the food we were eating, and start eating healthier ~ and guess what? We didn’t eat all that bad – but we ate bad enough to know changes were something that had to happen. We incorporated more organic products, sourced local raw milk, invested in a CSA and stopped shopping for most of our food at the traditional grocery store. Since making these dietary and lifestyle changes, my husband’s health has changed completely.

In turn, all of us are healthier.

But here’s the kicker:  It took a life event for us to make changes. 

Although I’d be hard pressed to clip a coupon now, you won’t see us in the grocery store much at all as compared to before. A bag here and there every few weeks is about it, we get most of our food locally:

• We buy our raw milk from a dairy farmer here in our area – it’s amazing
• We are part of a Fruit & Veggie Co-Op and have been for quite a long time now – that bag of produce is how we plan our meals each week. Not to mention we love supporting our local farmers
• We have reduced the meat we consume in our family – although we aren’t vegetarians, we limit our meat to once per week or once every other week. 
• We are passionate about our Essential Oils – we use them daily for our own personal wellness, cleaning and to support our health. 

Now, when one of my kids ask for something that’s not so good, you’ll hear the other kids chime in “but we can’t.. remember? Dad said that too much of those things will give us problems, so that’s why he doesn’t buy them now.”

The problem before is that we were TOO complacent. We didn’t think we needed to make any changes. We were somewhat fine – the job made money, we weren’t sick, and the bills were paid – what more could we want?

The Problem with Being Too Complacent

Being complacent and not wanting to make changes in your life is probably one of the easiest mistakes you will make.  Whether it be with your job, your health, your relationships,   It’s relatively easy to get too comfortable – but being comfortable can prevent you from moving forward with your job…. being comfortable can prevent you from making the changes you need to better your health. And being too comfortable can be risky for your relationship too.

Happy, optimistic individuals tend to look ahead at what might be in front of them – they have a vision.. and they know they can take the steps required to avoid falling into the trap of staying too comfortable.   

Complacency first happens when you graduate college or enter the working world – most people have pretty grand visions of picking up a really great job where they have a high level position in a relatively booming company.  Over time, they realize that it’ll take time to achieve their desired level at work – it requires networking, constant expansion of their social circle, and taking advantage of learning opportunities. It might involve late nights, weekend work and meeting NEW people. 

But that’s effort.  

Those things might cut into your personal time.. it might break up your weekend. You may find that you just don’t feel like learning new material or meeting new people.  In fact, your enthusiasm for work has declined – and now you feel like you are just automated to go to work and do the same job, day in and day out, with little to no enthusiasm for what you do.  You’re know that your enthusiasm has dropped but you justify your position – after all, it’s easy, and it pays your bills. What more could you ask for?

But then a new job opportunity comes along that might be in another area – an amazing chance to move up, branch out… but since you neglected to reinforce yourself in your social circles and you slacked off on networking, you might just be passed over. That enthusiasm you once had for what you do fell to the wayside – and as a result, you aren’t considered for the job because that enthusiasm that people once remembered you by is no longer there.

And there it is – an opportunity lost.

Complacency so commonly sneaks up on people in regards to their health.  .. at least it did with my husband just a few years ago. In your 20’s, you are flying high – you can eat and drink whatever you want, and your trip through the fast food line might not even cause you to think twice.  You hear talk about organic food and eating better, but you don’t see why it’s such a big deal – after all, you can get things free or cheap with coupons. 

The same goes for personal care – all these people talking about making beauty products, and getting rid of toxins is just nothing but a push to sell you things you don’t need, that you don’t have time for.   I have heard it – I love my Essential Oils but many people have said that it’s nothing but a ploy to get you to fall for another multi level marketing scheme.  

Oils are silly, they really have no place.  Right… except these voodoo oils keep us healthy, & they help us sleep better. They strengthen our immune system.  They help my husband deal with life’s issues on a daily basis instead of the orange bottle from the pharmacy, and they prevent my kids from being absent at school. It keeps us healthy and that’s my goal as a parent. I am pretty serious about the health of my kids.

Your health or weight is easily dealt with through a trip to the doc, a prescription of some sort… or a quick weight loss. You start pinning recipes on Pinterest so you can drop a few pounds and you continue on your path, until the day rolls around where your world comes crashing down.

At this point you realize the true reality.

Usually, that complacency sticks until something happens in your life that causes you to realize that you need to take action. Unfortunately, the older you get, the harder it is to make the changes you need, and it might just be harder than you think.  Not impossible, but harder. 

Being healthy and being happy, doesn’t just happen automatically – it requires effort, and sacrifice on your end. At this point in time, many people might just think everything is O.K. – after all, you might not have the vision to look far enough ahead to see anything different.

In a way, you might just be complacent, a little too comfortable – and before you know it, you will sit there one day and say “Wow – what just happened? How did I get here?”