I want to change this habit, add a habit in, or just get really motivated but I just can’t seem to go more than a couple of days. I have this great plan to stop eating foods that I know aren’t good for me, but it’s just so hard to keep it up. I need to add the habit in of journaling every day, but it’s just too easy to skip one day, then the next, until it’s been weeks since I journaled last.
Is this you? Do you find it difficult to create new productive habits or quit old unproductive habits? You want to do it, you make a plan to do it, you even make it a few days and then…it just fizzles, right? Are you ready to understand what is stopping you from getting where you want to go? More importantly, are you ready to understand how you can start shifting how you think so you can achieve those habits and goals?
So, what if I told you that it’s your unconscious mind that is in charge of creating change. Your conscious mind is the goal setter and your unconscious mind is the goal getter. Some people know this as the subconscious or the intelligence of the body, it doesn’t matter it’s all the same. For our purposes we call it the unconscious mind, because it is out of our consciousness, right now. The problem is that your unconscious mind has been doing things a certain way for quite some time and if you haven’t given it clear, direct, and simple goals it will always revert back to what is comfortable and easy.
See creating new habits, setting and achieving goals, and making change are almost always not easy. You usually have to be in a really bad spot or have tons of drive motivating you forward. Just wanting to make change is not enough to easily make change. Just think about how you wake up in the morning. You set the alarm and it goes off, but then you hit the snooze, it goes off again 5 minutes later, and you hit the snooze again. You keep hitting snooze until it’s the absolute last minute you can wait to get up.
This trains your unconscious mind that this is how you handle the alarm going off. It’s not productive, you get up and have to rush, your still tired because you had an alarm going off every 5 minutes for the last hour so you didn’t finish a sleep cycle, and your grumpy because you aren’t doing what you want to do.
This confirms to the unconscious mind that getting up is the last thing you want to do and so it continues the bad habit even once you’ve decided you are going to try getting up on the first alarm, that you are going to try not having to rush in the morning, that you are going to try and be in a good mood once your up and moving about…but you TRY and fail.
Now in my experience there is no failure only feedback, so what is the feedback here? That trying isn’t working. As the wise movie character Yoda once said, “No! Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.” You can TRY all you want, but you must choose to either not do or to do. Seems so simple right, and it is except that you need to give your unconscious mind clear instructions. 1% doubt leads to 100% failure, you need to focus on already having achieved whatever change you are going for.
This is where it gets a bit sticky, because people think you have to fake it till you make it…and I would say it’s a little more than that. Faking it until you make it leaves you with the feeling that you are…faking it. Now I would ask you, has there ever been a time where you successfully made a change in your life for the better and it was easy or at least easier. How did you feel after you had accomplished the goal of making that change. Notice that and then when you think of the habit, change, or goal you are working on imagine how it will look like, sound like, and give it that feeling of having accomplished it.
That is a great second step, so first you create what you want the habit or goal to look like then you act as if you have already accomplished what you are shifting. That will give you your 100% certainty of having made that change. The third step is to take action, so if you are working on getting healthier every time you head to the cupboard or the fridge for something you know you shouldn’t have, make sure you have something that moves you toward what you want that you can do instead.
Like, instead of eating the cupcake, take a 10 minute walk or drink a glass of water. You may need to add in exercise, make sure it’s at a time of day that works for you and that you will make the time to do it. A lot of people make the mistake of believing they have to cut out 30 minutes to an hour for exercise, but I have done some very successful programs that were 15-20 minutes a day.
Some days just aren’t good days, and you may want to not do what you need to do, you choose not to do what you need to do…Here I will give you the best thought process I know for situations like this. Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at that time and there is no failure, only feedback. That means you can forgive yourself for missing a day and the feedback is that you maybe needed a day off or something like that and that’s okay. Then the next day you start taking action again!
So now you have your habit you want to create or change, you have made sure you feel as if you have it now, and you are taking action. What do you do now? You are seeing things shifting and that’s exciting and maybe a little scary. Ride the momentum though, a little scary is okay and it’s so powerful when you start pushing through the scary bits and you come out the other side with all these little wins. The little wins really add up and they help you to create more positive change.
Now what happens if your habit, goal, change is not happening the way you want it? I would ask, did you create the feeling of having it now? If no, then you need to go back and do that! If the answer is yes, it could be a couple of things. One thing could be that it isn’t the habit, goal, or change that you need and your unconscious mind is trying to tell you OR it could be that you have a deeper conflict that it benefits you more to keep your old habit than to have the new one. This is where professional help may be required to help change how your thinking about the shift, see if there are any limiting beliefs that may be stopping you, if you are maybe conflicted about whether you can do the new habit or not.
It is awesome when you can do things like making small habit changes or full on personal growth journeys on your own and it’s my belief that sometimes you get to a point where you need to seek another perspective. I myself did lots of personal growth through reading and podcasts before I decided to get into the Personal and Professional Evolution field myself. So go for it, and when you are ready, seek out someone to help you to the next level. Because no matter how far you go, there is always more.
Remember the 3 Steps to change a habit
Create the habit you want
Give it the feeling of having it, as if now
Take action
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