Switch It Up & Grow

I'm a sucker for Welch's fruit snacks. When my son was younger, we always had them around the house. As he became a teenager, boxes of them somehow made their way back into the pantry. I have this habit where I take the entire small pouch and throw them back in my gullet all at one time.

So yesterday, after lunch, I grabbed a couple of bags and headed to my office. The leftovers were sitting on my desk, and trying not to be a complete mess, I decided to stuff all the empty pouches into one bag. Somehow, I ended up using my left hand to guide them into the bag in my right hand.

I'm right-handed. Using my left hand to guide the bags felt foreign. I somewhat struggled to get them in there without tearing the bag.

And it hit me.

Each time we do something new, it feels strange, foreign, and off. That little exercise felt weird because it's not my normal routine. It's the same as if you put your pants on with a different leg first, or held your fork in the opposite hand — it feels weird. It's unknown to you, and it's outside of your routine.

So what if we started changing up our routine every day and trying new things? What would that do to our growth? What types of new skills would we learn?

If we do the same routine every day on repeat, we never have the opportunity to grow. You can't develop new skills if you're always defaulting to what's easy.

That fruit snack moment was minor. Silly. But it reminded me how quickly our minds try to resist anything unfamiliar, even something as dumb as swapping hands. When you apply that same resistance to bigger parts of life — jobs, relationships, habits — it becomes really clear how easy it is to get stuck.

Comfort isn't always calm. Sometimes it's just autopilot. You're coasting, not growing. Before you know it, years go by and you're still leading with the same foot, still living the same version of your life you built a decade ago.

Disruption doesn't need to be dramatic. You don't have to quit your job or move across the world to change your life. Take a new route. Sit on a different side of the table. Speak up in a meeting when you normally wouldn't. Say yes when you usually say no. That's how confidence grows.

You're not here to perfect your old routine. You're here to build a better one. One that stretches you. One that wakes you up. One that reminds you you're still growing.