Why is Change so Challenging?

Over 80% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned within a week. If change were easy, we’d all be wealthy, fit, and happy. It’s frustrating when you know what you want to do, but you can’t get yourself to do it consistently. If the new behavior would obviously be of benefit, why isn’t that change easy to make?

Change is challenging for several reasons:

1. Habits are strong and pervasive. The average person has far more habits than they realize. Each morning, you wake up and follow the same routine. You take the same path to work. You think the same thoughts as you did the day before. Much of your day and night is a repeat of the last 500.

• When you feel bored, you soothe yourself in the same 2-3 ways each time. You only eat a few foods regularly. You talk to the same people.
• Habits avoid thinking. They’re done automatically. Anything that minimizes thinking seems to be your brain’s preference. The fewer decisions, the better.
• To change, you must be certain that change is in your best interest. Otherwise, your habits will always win.

1. Change is hard because it’s uncomfortable. You already know how to lose 25 pounds or how to find a better job. But the thought of taking the actions necessary to accomplish those goals creates discomfort.
2. What you’re doing is already working, sort of. Your brain is preoccupied with your survival. Our brains are programmed to resist change, because what you’re doing is allowing you to live. Any change could potentially lead to death. You might be unhappy today, but you’re still alive!

• Most of us prefer misery than facing uncertainty.

1. You’ve tried to change in the past and failed. You’re no dummy. If you’ve tried to change several times and failed, part of you says, “Obviously, I can’t change. What’s the use in trying?”

It isn’t easy to change, but change is possible. The primary issue keeping you from following through on your plan to change is attempting to change too much, too soon. Smaller changes are easier to accomplish and to maintain.

How You Can Change

Change is possible with an effective approach:

1. Be prepared to change. Expect that change will be challenging. Your odds of success improve if you’re prepared. Have a plan.
2. Start small. To minimize the discomfort that change creates, only change a little each week. Meditating for two minutes each day is easier than starting with 60 minutes. The key is to get in the habit of doing the new behavior each day.
3. Have patience. It can take months to make a change permanent. It’s often quoted that a new habit requires 30 days to instill. That’s not true. Studies show that it can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months, depending on the habit and the person.
4. Be willing to change yourself and face the consequences. Changing yourself is scary, because you don’t know what the results will be. Accept that your life will change in some way. Discomfort isn’t always a bad thing.
5. Expect to relapse. Falling off the wagon is to be expected. Attempt to enhance your approach and keep going. Aim for 90% compliance. That’s all you need. Perfection is an illusion that will only serve to destroy your confidence.

Change requires patience with yourself. Understand why it’s so challenging to change and choose to make changes slowly and incrementally. Imagine how much you could change over a few years if you changed just a tiny amount each week. The results would be staggering! How much have you changed over the last few years? Give slow change a chance.

Top 7 Ways to Boost Your Self-Esteem

Everyone needs to feel a sense of self-worth and healthy self-esteem in order to live a successful, contented life. While some people look to others and their material success to gauge their own self-worth, the most important assessment is how you feel about yourself.

There are many things you can do to boost your own self-esteem. By taking the steps to build your own self-worth and well-being, you’re practicing the best form of preventative medicine possible.

Here are the top seven ways to boost your self-esteem:

1. Do things you love. The more time you spend doing things you love to do, the better it makes you feel. Doing the things you enjoy causes your brain to produce higher levels of endorphins, which are chemical in the brain that increase your sense of joy and well-being.

   Engaging in activities we love also helps us recall other times we’ve done them, and those memories increase our self-esteem. Our favorite activities are often things we do well, which is a factor in increasing our self-esteem.

1. Strengthen your strengths. When you exercise your strengths, they become stronger and your self-esteem rises as well. We all like to feel proud of the things we excel at and those things cause us to feel better about ourselves.

   Spend time working on, building, and renewing your strengths, and your inner approval rating will soar.

1. Surround yourself with positive people. Positive energy is like an electrical charge as it spreads from one person to the next. When you spend time in the company of positive people, your own attitude will lift to match theirs, and you’ll be charged from their energy.

1. Measure your worth based on yourself, not on others. Everyone sees the world based on his or her own biases and circumstances. When someone pours negative thoughts on another person, it’s a greater reflection on their own deficiencies than the person they’re attacking.

   Basing your self-esteem on another person’s opinions is never a good idea. Instead, take your value from what you know to be the truth about yourself from the inside out, not the other way around.

1. Believe in yourself. Trust in your ability to achieve whatever you set your mind to accomplish. When you believe that you’re capable of attaining your goals, you unleash the ability to do so from deep within you, so trust in the process.

1. Set your thoughts on the things you want to attract. Albert Einstein determined all things are made of energy and energy attracts more of the same energy. Focusing your thoughts on the things you desire in your life keeps the energy of those things moving toward you.

1. Speak affirming thoughts to yourself. We’ve all heard the phrase “act as if.” Affirmations work on that principle. Instead of saying, “I want to be happy,” say, “I am a happy person.” Say it out loud everyday.

   You’ll begin to reprogram your subconscious to believe it as the truth, and soon you’ll be feeling that truth every day.

These simple steps to boost your self-esteem are easy to put into practice in your day-to-day life. Start today and build your self-worth and self-esteem into the foundation of your character. Your life will never be the same.

The Silver Lining of Rejection

Getting rejected, whether it’s for a career position or in a relationship, can be one of the most challenging events you’ll ever experience. So it may be hard to believe that there is a silver lining when it comes to rejection, but it’s true! There are some positives about being rejected.

Consider these points whenever you’ve gone through an experience involving rejection:

1. You get a “do over.” A rejection likely signals an end of something. Perhaps it’s the end of a romantic relationship. Or maybe it’s the end of going through a tedious process of a job search.

• Whatever the case, when a rejection occurs, something new is about to begin. Maybe you’ll be able to date again. Perhaps you’ll settle back in to your current job with renewed efforts.

• You get to start over when rejection occurs and that can be a real “plus.” Recognize it.

1. You have time to reflect on the rejection. You can ask yourself, “What part did I play in this situation?”

• When you ponder how you behaved, the actions you took, and how you might have affected others throughout whatever transpired before and during the rejection, it can be enlightening.
• Take a few moments to think about how you conducted yourself through the situation. Be glad for the time you now have to increase your self-awareness.

• Figuring out anything you might have done or not done can help you with a different approach in the future.

1. Ask yourself, “What, if anything, do I want to change about myself?” If you wish to change something about yourself, go for it! Especially after a rejection, it’s good to re-focus back on yourself for a while.
2. Acknowledge the fate aspect of the situation. Perhaps it was fate. There may be something more fulfilling, enticing, or adventurous waiting for you around the next corner.
3. Take the bull by the horns and make some plans for your future. What life goals do you have? What do you need to be doing right now to get closer to achieve them? Put some plans into place so you know exactly where you’re headed.

• Use the clarity you have after the rejection to motivate you.

1. What did you learn from the experience? Jot down what you learned about yourself, the situation, the other person involved, the interview process, or whatever else it may be.

• Perhaps you learned to prepare more for your interviews in the future. Maybe you discovered you should have listened to your gut when it told you not to get involved with that person. Perhaps you realize now that you gave too much in a situation without expecting anything in return.
• Figure out what you learned from the process. You will undoubtedly be able to use that information later.

1. Get to the point where you can say, “It was worth it.” Every life experience gives us something. After you figure out what you learned, then you can acknowledge that whatever you went through was worth it.

The silver lining of rejection allows you a “do over.” You get time to think about the part you played in the situation. You get an opportunity to make changes in yourself and acknowledge that fate took its course.

You have a renewed option to make plans for your future and determine what you learned from the experience. Ultimately, the silver lining is that you can say, “It was worth it.”

Learn to move forward with confidence and purpose after a rejection. Rediscover your passion for life. Renew your efforts to discover the pathway toward the life of your dreams!

Six Ways to Increase Your Clarity

Having clarity is important to achieving goals and attaining any significant measure of success. With clear goals, you know what you want and how to go about getting there.

But what if you’re not feeling much clarity? What if you can’t make up your mind about what path you should choose, and your decision-making seems muddled? This is actually a very common challenge and happens to the best of us from time to time.

Fortunately, moving from a sense of uncertainty into full clarity isn’t particularly difficult.

All you need to do is take few simple actions, and clarity will follow:

1. Take responsibility. The power in taking full responsibility for anything is that you give yourself the power to change it. If you believe that something is inside of your control, you can always find a way to have what you want. You’ll never be stuck.

• Clarity is something that you ultimately create, not something that happens to you. If you’re currently not as well practiced at creating clarity as you would like, resolve that you’re going to work on this.
• Start by making a decision and then sticking with it until success is achieved. Since you get better at making decisions by being aware of your priorities, you may need to spend some time contemplating what’s most important to you.
  

1. Use your past. Your past is a tool that’s always available. Your level of clarity hasn’t always been constant. There have been times in your life when things seemed much clearer than they are right now. There have also been times when you felt more uncertain.
   
2. Visualize. You may think that things have to be a certain way before you can feel clear. Having everything “just so” can make focusing easier. However, even when things aren’t perfect, you can still choose to make a decision and stick with it.

• Instead of waiting for the ideal circumstances, visualize what your life would be like if they were in place. What would you know that you don’t know right now? How would you feel? Visualization can help you make decisions as though things are actually already the way you want them to be.

1. Write down your goals and review them. Having a written objective will help you stay clear. First of all, you have to make some decisions to even have a goal in the first place. Second, by reviewing that goal every day, you’ll keep reinforcing that objective. As you do this work, your clarity will become a little greater each day.

• Reviewing your goals first thing in the morning and last thing at night should work well for you.
  

1. Believe that an okay goal is better than no goal. Many people get stuck making a goal because they believe they have to come up with the perfect goal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t spend too much time or energy creating the goal. Just pick something that feels good to you and start working on it.
2. Focus on one project at a time. Having a high level of clarity is easier if you’re only focusing on one thing at time. After you’ve achieved several goals, then you can try working on several goals simultaneously. Avoid spreading yourself too thin, especially at first.

As you can see, you can do many things to increase your level of clarity. The best news is that you don’t have to wait; you can get started today. As you increase your clarity, your life will seem easier and easier. Before you know it, you’ll achieve goals you never even thought you could set for yourself. Now that’s progress!