How to make a change stick for good

We want to make changes and we want to make a change stick for good. We want this because change is hard and time-consuming and full of facing our own resistance, which is difficult to do.

In wanting to make changes stick for good, however, we often want something else: for it to be easy. Let’s just save some time and admit that it won’t be easy. It’s not easy to change, and it’s not easy to make a change stick for good. That’s how life is. If it were easy, we’d have done it by now.

The path to making a change stick for good, while not “easy” is at least simple.

Simple as in, there are really just a few things to focus on.

1.) Forming the basis for the change, and 2.) Creating the change as a habit.

Forming the Basis for the Change

Ask yourself what needs to change.

Then ask yourself why it needs to change.

Be sure to notice both the negative consequences of NOT changing, as well as the positive outcomes of ACTUALLY changing.

Then start working backwards. If what needs to change is your health and you never exercise, then work backwards: how much exercise will lead to the type of health that you desire? And what type of exercise? What time of day will you do said exercise?

When you’ve answered those questions, resistance will probably come up. This is part of the process. Something in you will realize that this is a lot of work, perhaps more than you had anticipated.

That’s when it’s time to start creating the change as a habit.

Creating The Habit

Whatever you want to change probably has a habit component to it. It’s probably a negative habit, however, something you do regularly that you wish you weren’t doing, or something you regularly avoid that you wish you weren’t avoiding. You can have a habit of dysfunctional behavior and a habit of avoiding a thing that would be a functional behavior.

The habit that you want to change probably feels automatic, right? It probably feels like something that you gravitate towards without even meaning to.

The trick in changing the habits you want, is to understand that this period of discomfort when changing the old habit is temporary.

With enough time, the NEW habit that you want to integrate into your life starts taking on the automatic quality that the old habit had. It starts feeling like something you gravitate towards, without even meaning to.

You can learn how to create anything as a habit. You can even create courageous habits.

Accountability

However you decide to create a habit is up to you, but personally? Without some kind of accountability, I’m sunk.

I use the productive app as a habit tracker. I’ve also been known to mark in my calendar when I have or haven’t finished something.

When I was in my 20s, this was bo-ring! Such a snooze, so antiquated, this habit-tracking.

A few decades later, it’s like, Yeah, that was really an immature perspective.

If accountability works to help make a change stick for good…then it works. The resistance I had to accountability was actually resistance to creating success in my life.

If you genuinely want to make a change stick for good, you’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. You’ll spend more time seeking ways for it to work, than thinking about the resistance and why things don’t work.

Pull out a piece of paper. Start the process now (no delays). Map out what you want to change, and why, and begin.