Step #1 is you have to DECIDE that it's time to change something. It could be an area of your life, like a relationship - a fitness goal, to quit smoking or whatever.
Step #2 is to kick start it with action. I do not care what the change is, it ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS starts with an ACTION. Just a mere thought that you'll do something differently won't be enough. You have to actually DO something. Step #3 is to keep taking that action so that it grows into a MOMENTUM. As you keep going, as you keep pushing, the momentum flywheel will start to spin and will push you further and faster towards where you want to be. Step #4: is to stay CONSISTENT. After about a week, the initial excitement about what you're doing will slowly subside, and that's when you simply need to stay consistent with it. This is a point where you are ALMOST there, and all you have to do is just keep at it, until it becomes Step #5: Create a HABIT. Now your ACTION has become a habit. A habit is simply something that you DO as part of your life. Going to the gym becomes a habit. You don't even think about it anymore. Reading for 10 min a day becomes a habit, you don't even think about it anymore. It's just like brushing your teeth - there isn't a lot of will power necessary to brush them every morning. Step #6: You get the RESULT you want. Now that you've done your action for so long, that action has slowly chipped away and built your new self. Now you became the new version of yourself.
Do you have the tendency to start something, only to stop doing it after a few times?
For example, maybe you pick up a book... you decide to read it every day... but after 10 or 20 pages you simply stop reading? Or maybe you start exercising, get a gym membership and decide you'll go at it... but then after you 2nd "rest day" you forget to ever go back? If that's your common story, then it is probably the reason WHY you don't achieve your goals. Because here's the thing:
But if you don't have this one thing, then NONE of it matters. And what is that thing? That thing is the ability to STAY AT IT for a specific length of time, until the "it" becomes a HABIT. You are what you repeatedly DO
Not what you repeatedly THINK.
Not what you repeatedly SAY that you'll do. But what you actually DO. Whatever goal you want to accomplish, it will require you having the ability to START doing it, and then to actually DO IT for long enough, until it becomes a reality. Check out this 60 sec video of me explaining this concept with a simple example. So How Can You Make Yourself DO IT?
How can you develop the DOING IT and not fall of after 2 days?
The answer is... Make your entry point SMALL and EASY. What do I mean by this? Well if you try to make the thing too big, and you try to do TOO MUCH... then you will fall off quickly. For example, if you say to yourself: "Every day I will READ for 1 hour..." That will be very hard to sustain if you never read before. You'll find it hard to "squeeze" in the time and will probably quit after 3 days. But if on the other hand you say: "Every day, I will read for 7 minutes..." How can you find an excuse not to read for 7 minutes? If you actually do, then you probably never wanted to read in the first place. The thing is, even if you really don't have time... you can always be 7 minutes late to anything. Heck you can read while you wait in line to get your Starbucks. So the chances of you skipping that day are SLIM to none. When I created this habit, I would start with the intention of reading for just 7 minutes... but then I would stay at it for 30 min or more. And very often, I'd read for a full hour! But if I started with the intention of reading for an hour, my mind would find some excuse not to do it. So the important thing is to just START. How about going to the gym? Well when I tried creating a habit of going to the gym, I found that the hardest part was actually GOING to the gym. It was getting my ass to the actual LOCATION. Because the mere thought of going to the gym made me think of all the heavy weights I needed to lift, the discomfort I'd feel and I pictured myself sweating in pain. So I would procrastinate, until I eventually said: "I'll just go tomorrow..." So to fix that, I made my entry point just GOING to the gym. Exercising wasn't even necessary. If I just got myself to the gym, I would consider that as mission accomplished. And sometimes I would get into my gym clothes and start walking towards the gym, with the FULL intention of just walking into the gym, getting some coffee and then going back home... Only to be sweating like a pig 2 hours later (and loving it ofc). You need to understand that your mind is a tricky thing... it doesn't want to see you in any kind of PAIN. So it will make you avoid it at any cost necessary, EVEN if it's for your own good. When you make your entry point so low, you automatically defeat your mind because you take away the PAIN of it. Make sense? So what would you like to change?
What kind of a habit would you like to establish?
Write it down here: _______________________________________ . Now, think about what is your LOWEST entry point to doing that. Write it down here: ______________________________________ . Now, set a timeline for how long are you committing to doing this for: I commit to doing it for _____ days / weeks / months. Excellent. As an example, my cousin wanted to get in shape, but he simply couldn't get himself to follow up on the daunting task of actually signing up for a gym, then committing to going there on a regular basis... So he came up with a simple task of doing 10 push-ups per day. It was SIMPLE, EASY and it was something he could do daily. He made the commitment of doing it for 75 days straight and making a video of himself doing it. On day 5 he did 28 pushups already. That's the power of a small entry point. So whatever it is you want to do, remember to start SMALL, make a LOW entry point and KEEP GOING. Comment below and tell us what will be your small action, and for how long you'll do it. |
AuthorOmir is a coach who helps people improve their personal and business lives. Archives
October 2019
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