Today you’re going to learn how to make permanent changes in your life.
Do you want to develop a new good habit? We suggest how to go about it to make it succeed this time.
How To Make Permanent Changes In Your Life:
1. Small changes
If you want to change everything, chances are you won’t change anything.
“If you want to change your habits, then for it to be effective, you should change no more than three things at once” – says BJ Fogg, a psychologist at Stanford University, and adds that if someone decides to change as many as three areas, they must be small , well-defined goals, otherwise you can’t count on success.
Fogg’s theory was developed in book “Habits Guide: How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones” by James Clear.
In his opinion, the problem with changing habits is that we think about the spectacular changes that will take place, the successes we will achieve.
“Meanwhile, you should focus on habits and routine behaviors, because it is the small everyday things that make reality,” says Clear, adding that you should start by changing the little things. “So small that it’s a shame not to change them.”
2. Lean goals
BJ Fogg is the author of the three-step model of effective behavior change.
The first step is accuracy in goal setting (get specific). Do not set yourself a general goal (eg I want to have a flat stomach), but specify what habit you want to develop and translate it into a specific action (eg I will exercise “crunches”).
Step two is simplicity (make it easy). The new habit should be simple and easy to achieve. If we plan to do 100 sit-ups every day, we can quickly lose our enthusiasm. It’s better to set a “lean goal”, such as 10 sit-ups after each meal.
The third step is to determine what will trigger the new behavior. The easiest way to implement a new habit is to use the old one, that is: every time I put down my plate after a meal, I will do 10 sit-ups.
The point is that putting the plate aside will be a kind of reminder that you need to do 10 sit-ups.
Achieving a small success will increase your motivation and you will be able to raise the bar and do 15 sit-ups instead of 10. And this is how we will reach our goal in small steps.
SEE ALSO: How Gratitude Changes Your Brain: (10 Scientific Studies)
3. A good plan
When setting goals to achieve, we like to fantasize about what our life will be like when, for example, we lose 10 kilos, learn English or find a prince charming.
We spend little time answering the question why we want to achieve this goal.
It seems obvious to us and not worth considering, but naming and understanding what drives us is the best way to keep your motivation high.
Researchers from the University of California (1) investigated the successes in learning foreign languages achieved by people who generally fantasized about learning a language and those who imagined how they would use the language in specific life situations.
Those who envisioned the practical use of language achieved much better results, because when visualizing the goal, they also focused on the steps that must be taken to achieve it, and the visualization of individual steps made the fear of doing them lower and seemed easier so it was easier to take them.
4. Quick start
At the beginning of every change there is a dream about what it will be like in the future, and while visualizing and considering the components that will lead us to achieve the goal is very important, it is even more important to finally start implementing it.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of eternal planning, and thus postponing (the famous phrase that probably falls in every corner of the world every minute “I’m slimming down from Monday”).
Therefore, the first small step should be taken right away. Achieving a small success will motivate us to take the next steps.
Teresa Amabile from The Harvard Business School (2) has been researching for years how everyday life in organizations can affect people and their results.
Her observations show that small successes achieved every day significantly increase motivation.
5. The power of routine
“I limit the number of decisions. I don’t want to make too many decisions about what I eat or wear. Because I have too many more important ones to take on,” former US President Barack Obama explained when asked why gray and blue suits reign supreme in his wardrobe.
“This is very sensible, because making multiple choices reduces mental energy, even if the choices are mundane and relatively enjoyable,” explains Kathleen Vohs, who, together with a group of researchers from the University of Minnesota, looked at the mechanisms that influence self-control.
In order not to waste this energy, it is worth simplifying your behavior as much as possible so that it becomes almost routine.
Without thinking about them, we will keep the strength to introduce new ones.
SEE ALSO: 5 TOP Reasons Why You’re Stuck: How To Get Unstuck In Life
6. Hell’s trap
New habits are very fragile, so by allowing ourselves even a small deviation from routine behavior, we run the risk of failure.
Probably each of us has at least once promised himself not to eat sweets and kept the promise for some time.
Then he went on a name day to his friends and, encouraged by the hosts, was tempted to take a little piece, and then … another piece, and again returned to his old habits.
This is called hell efect, a process that describes the cycle of emotions and reactions that you experience when you allow yourself to do something, then regret what you did, and then do it again.
The brain starts rationalizing your behavior, and if you’ve decided to take one piece, why should you deny yourself another piece.
The phrase was first coined by diet psychologists, but “hell eect” refers to any failure or challenge of willpower.
7. The power of support
The people you spend time with influence your behavior.
“Therefore, when we want us to be able to introduce effective changes this time, it is worth looking for allies. People with whom you can talk openly about your successes and failures, ”encourages Martha Smith, psychologist and coach at the Institute of Self Development.
This is because recent research shows that the people you spend time with affect your habits, both good and bad.
American and Chilean scientists conducted an experiment in which a peer support group motivated to save, it turned out that people who had such a support group doubled their financial savings, those who acted alone – did not have such success.
Thank you for reading this article about how to make permanent changes in your life and I really hope that you take action my advice.
I wish you good luck and I hope its contents have been a good help to you.
