Have you ever read those books that tell you all these things you should do to improve your situation in life, but then don’t really tell you how to make the changes. It sounds good in the book, but putting it into practice is … sometimes so hard that somedays it feels impossible.
Or have you ever set goals for yourself and watch yourself fail over and over. You stand by as you slip into bd habits, give up over and over, or simply sabotage your own efforts to improve.
Change can be hard.
But change is possible. And here are some tools of change that can help you:
- Will Power
- Activation Energy
- Social Strength
- Reason for WHY
- Paradigm Shift
Let’s talk about each in turn…
Will Power
Will power is sheer grit. Forcing yourself to do something (or refrain from doing something). This is the easiest thing to do, and for some people, the only way they know how to create change in their lives. The problem about will power is that it is notorious for not working. If you are doing nothing other than using will power to make changes in your life, you will likely fail in your efforts.
The problem with will power is that it runs out. When you get to the end of the day, when you are tired and hungry, you just give up. It’s like will power is a batter charging your energy to change. The problem happens when the will power batter runs out and you have no more energy to make that change. Then you fall back to bad habits or fall of the road of progress.
Activation Energy
Activation energy allows you to make decisions and work toward your goals when your energy is strong. It’s like a technique for storing some of your will power for times when you are weak. The way you use your activation energy is to…
- Make bad choices harder to act on, and
- Make good, supportive, choices easier or the default.
This takes the form of setting out your gym clothes next to your bed the night before, only having healthy food choices in the house, or freezing your credit cards in ice. You put up barriers to behaviors that don’t support your goals and you make it super easy to behave in a way that helps you reach your goals.
This is a great technique when it is available to you.
Social Strength
You can lean on the strength of others. Perhaps you are not strong enough in those weak moments. You want to do something, but betray yourself in moments of discouragements. When the going gets tough and you want to quit, your friend steps in and encourages you. This social support can take many forms.
Your loved ones can just physically stop you from doing something they know will harm you. They can do this emotionally, too, through encouragement or discouragement. Encouraging you to go the extra mile, talk to the girl, put down the doughnut, or apply for that position.
You can draw social strength from a coach or mentor. Being held accountable or having to answer to someone you look up to will drive you to be someone better. A coach or a mentor can also provide wisdom and instruction. These individuals can also act as sounding boards helping you see whether your ideas will be supportive or distracting if you were to act on them before you do anything with them. They can point out solutions you may not have been aware of or considered.
The reverse of drawing strength from mentors is being one. As humans, we will do so much more for others than we would do for ourselves. Serving others or acting in a position of responsibility can make you do things you may never have had strength to do otherwise. It’s like a new parent finally maturing and making good choices for the sake of their children.
Friends can jump in and intervene. Intervention happens when friends see you going down the wrong path and jump in as an individual or group. They can provide positive peer pressure or mob mentality to get you to behave in positive and supportive ways.
Reason for Why
Having a good reason for doing what you are doing will REALLY help you stay on track, especially when things get hard. Ultimately, this motivation will see you through the hard times. And sometimes you may find yourself doing the same tasks, but for different reasons. Let me give you an example:
- Francis goes to work because he has to.
- Francis goes to work because he loves helping the people he works for and earning money to financially support the people he loves.
Establishing a good reason why you do something will help you build the habits and behavior you need to propel changes in your life.
Paradigm Shift
The strongest way to create change in your life is to reprogram that change in your mind. This can sometimes be very easy and sometimes be very difficult. Sometimes you need to face ugly monsters of trauma from your past, and other times you need to realize something. Here are some ways to change your inner paradigm:
REASONING – Just thinking through it can help you to change how you see your life. You can take your mind through a thought experiments to reach new levels of reasoning.
AFFIRMATIONS – Words are power. Speaking and hearing words that provide supportive energy and imagery do so much to shift your beliefs.
VISUALIZATIONS – Being able to see visions or images in your mind make you feel that you are there experiencing that paradigm. You feel the emotion, and it becomes more and more real. And you believe it. It then becomes your new paradigm.
EVIDENCE – There is all sorts of evidence available – supportive and not supportive. This could be evidence from your personal experience or the behavior you see others model. You look at those things that support you and by focusing on that evidence, you make your case to your mind convincing yourself of that new supportive paradigm. What you believe about the universe changes and you have a new paradigm.
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