Latest / Internal Insights / Why You Should Stop Asking If Change Is Working Yet
Transcript
- Ted Thao: Welcome to Internal Insights, a quick, honest conversation about mental health in about five minutes or less. I'm your host Ted Tao, a licensed professional counselor, and the owner of Internal Insights Therapy in San Antonio, Texas. Every episode, we take one idea from therapy, trauma, anxiety, relationships, identity, and talk about it plainly. No jargon, no fluff, just something real. Let's get into it. You know that feeling when you've been trying to do better? Eating a little healthier, going to bed a little earlier, maybe just checking in with yourself once a day. And after a week or two, you look around and think, Nothing is different. Nothing feels different. So what was the point? I want to talk about that feeling today because it is one of the most common reasons people give up right before things actually start to shift. Here's the thing about change. We tend to picture it as a moment, a before and an after. One day you are stuck, and the next day you are not. But that's not really how it works. And honestly, that picture sets almost everyone up to feel like a failure. Real change is more like filling up a bathtub with a slow trip. For a long time, you can Not see the water level moving at all. You just stand there staring at it and swear nothing is going to happen. But the water is rising. It just takes a little while before it's visible. And if you walk away right before it starts to show, you never get to see what all that dripping was building towards. Small repeated actions works. In the same way in life. A five minute walk does not undo months of feeling low. One honest conversation doesn't fix a whole relationship pattern. One night of decent sleep does not erase months of exhaustion. But none of these things were ever supposed to work alone. They are drips. And drips only mean something when you let them keep going. There's also something else going on underneath this, which is that small actions are not just adding up quietly in the background. Every time you do a small thing, even if it feels pointless, you are sending yourself a quiet message. I am someone who follows through. I am someone who tries. Over time, that message becomes a part of how you see yourself. And how you see yourself shape what you believe is possible for you. The part that does not show up on a calendar or a chart, but it might be the most important part of all. I get asked some version of this. People will say, I have been trying to make a change for weeks, and I do not feel anything different. So how do I know that this is even working? Or am I just wasting my time? And here's the thing that normally pops up in my sessions. You are probably not going to feel the shift while you're doing small things. That is not a sign of failure. It is just how things work. The value of a small action is rarely visible in the moment you take it. However, It does show up later, almost sideways. When you notice you handle something hard a little more calmly than you used to, or you did not spiral the way you might have a few months ago. This is the water finally reaching the top of the tub. You just couldn't see it rising. So instead of asking, do I feel different yet? Try asking a smaller question. Did I do the thing today? That is it. Not that I do the work, not did I do it better, not that I feel better, just did I do it? Let that be enough for now. The feeling comes later. The doing comes first. If you are in a season where nothing feels like it is changing, I do not think that means you are doing it wrong. I think it might mean you are right in the middle of the part nobody can see. That's it for this episode of Internal Insights. If this gave you something to sit with, or just made you feel a little less alone, that's the whole point. This isn't a replacement for therapy, but if you're looking for support, you can find me at Internal Insights Therapy in San Antonio, Texas. Thank you for spending five minutes I'll see you next time.