Improving By Removing

Michelangelo’s David began life as a six ton seventeen foot tall slab of marble. First, the master removed large blocks to produce a rough approximation, he then set about the finer details, chipping away at the block to reveal muscles, veins, locks of hair and facial features. A full three years later, the figure was ready to be sanded and polished, completing a work that remains an icon five centuries later. We might think of behavior change in a similar way, focusing on the removal of the unnecessary by way of approaching our ideals.

On a surface level this might look like reducing commitments we don’t enjoy, selling items we don’t use or cutting out habits that don’t serve us.

On a deeper level we might examine our identities. Self-limiting beliefs block the path we want to travel. Ideas about ourselves which we had no say in tell us what we can and can’t do. Hypercritical inner monologues halt our progress at every slip up. If our ideal is a free flowing river, these attitudes are dams, the removal of which can lead to a truer version of ourselves.

Just because it’s a case of removal does not make the task easy. In the realm of identity, resistance is fierce. We become attached to our beliefs, self serving or not. We conspire against our goals, we obfuscate, delude and downplay, anything to keep our identity intact. It takes a clear mind to reflect on what needs to change, genuine courage to do so, and experience to realise our choice was correct.

Depending on your perspective, David was already inside that slab, it just needed Michelangelo’s vision (and chisel) to release him. Imagine your life a block of marble. What would be first in the scrap bucket? As we change and evolve so to will our vision. Fortunately, unlike David, we aren’t set in stone.

Thanks for reading,

Mike