Courtesy of Steve Aitchison's blog Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
Any person who’s into personal
development knows that changing your thinking, behavior or emotional
reactions is complicated enough. But things often get even more
complicated because that change doesn’t stick.
You finally got in the habit of eating healthy and hitting the gym every
day, then something sidetracks you and you find yourself eating junk
food and slacking it again.
You finally managed to build your social confidence and be more social,
only to find that old anxiety creeping in again one day when you’re in a
social setting, and preventing you from being outgoing.
Unfortunately, old negative habits often do come back, many times just
when we think we got rid of them, and sometimes they come back with a
vengeance. This is why it’s important to be able not only to make change
happen, but also to make it stick.
As a coach, I put a great deal of focus in helping my clients with both
these aspects. I’d like to share with you the most important 5
strategies they, as well as myself, have used successfully to make new
habits stick.
1. Expect and Accept Regress
As far as I can tell, regress is a natural part of progress. When we
improve, we frequently make two steps forward, one step back. Our mind
falls back on old habits several times until it lets go of them
completely to make room for the new habits.
What truly matters is how you react when regress happens. If you see it
as something terrible that shouldn’t happen or as a sign that you can’t
truly change, you’ll likely be shocked, become disillusioned and give
up. Obviously, not a good outcome.
On the other hand, if you see regress as a natural part of
self-improvement, you expect it to come about and you accept it when it
does. You take notice of it, then you put your eyes back on the target
and you keep moving forward. Sooner or later, the change will stick
permanently.
2. Choose Regularity over Intensity
One thing I’ve noticed is that, for building new habits, it’s much more
effective to practice something 15 minutes every day for 30 days than 3
hours every day for 3 days. And the latest psychological research tends
to support this idea as well.
Even though the overall amount of time dedicated to practicing is
somewhat smaller in the first case, the new habit will be more likely to
stick. And even if you will regress eventually, it will be to a lesser
degree and easier to overcome.
This is because regularity is more important than intensity in forming
new mental associations, which are reflected in new habits. Both of them
are essential, but regularity seems to be the priority. Take this into
account when you establish how much you implement something each day and
for how many days.
3. Don’t Stop Practicing Too Early
On a related note, most people tend to stop practicing stuff too early.
Usually, when a new habit starts to take form, when they finally see the
desired behavior, feeling or way of thinking emerging on its own, they
take it as a sign that the change is done and so they stop practicing.
However, this is not true. If you don’t keep practicing at that point,
in a few days you’ll go right back to your old habit.
The new habit may feel natural at that point, but part of this is only
temporary. You need to keep practicing it and to reinforce it in your
mind in order to make the change stick. I can’t stress enough how
important this is.
4. Incentivize Yourself to Practice
Realizing the long-term benefits of doing something regularly is simply
not enough to keep you doing it. Sometimes it’s not even enough to get
you started. Just look at all the people who know the long-term benefits
they will achieve if they stop smoking, or drinking, or eating sweets,
but still they don’t.
You need to create and sustain the emotional drive to practice. This is
where instant incentives come in: rewards that you give yourself
immediately for practicing something, but you forbid yourself from
accessing if you don’t practice.
In my view, a good practice routine entails daily practice activities,
combined with daily incentives to actually do them. In my experience,
this is the only approach that works in the long-run.
5. Seek Outside Support
The truth is, other people are a powerful force that you can employ to
help make change happen and then keep practicing to make it stick.
There are lots of ways to employ them. You can get some of your friends
to engage in making the same changes you want to make and you can help
keep each other accountable.
You can work with a trainer, coach or instructor who supervises your
practice and, likewise, helps to keep you accountable.
Look around, see the options you have for getting support from others
and use them. Change is much easier when others are there to help you.
Ultimately, making change stick is from my perspective a matter of
working smarter, not harder. You need to have a good understanding of
how your mind works in installing new habits and to apply this
understanding in the way you organize you day to day activity.
This is what works. This is what allows you to genuinely grow and thrive
in this world.
Thanks to Eduard Ezeanu a guest author on Steve Aitchison's Blog
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