“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
About 90% of all coronary bypass patients have not changed their lifestyles 2 years after their surgery. Why?
Is it because of a lack of motivation? Lack of knowledge? Or is it that they don’t believe that it's possible to transform your life?
We all have something in our lives we would like to change. Most of us have tried, often many times, and “failed”. Here are a few practical tips and ways to succeed in all steps of a lifestyle transformation.
Step 1 - Figure out the problem and your values
First, you must figure out and recognise the problem. For a thing to turn into a problem, it must cause some kind of inconvenience in our lives.
For example, being overweight. As long as being overweight doesn’t cause us any harm (social, mental or physical) the subconscious doesn’t see a need to use any valuable time or energy to solve the problem.
There must be strong enough stimuli attached to the problem. Often it is the diagnosis of a new illness, the death of a parent from the same illness, decline in quality of life, social stigma or the fear of the future.
Everyone must find the most important “why” - the most important reason why something must be done.
Step 2 - Change your mentality
Before a big step is taken in a lifestyle change, the subconscious must be made to believe that it is possible.
Most changes are left “stuck” in this step because we do not really believe that we could do it. We imagine the change in our heads; of a big, scary, difficult, and almost impossible challenge.
For our lives to change for the better, we have to be made to believe that it is possible.
The best way to do this is to get to know people who have succeeded in the change - either personally or by reading their stories.
“If they could do it, I can do it too!” is most often a good enough motivation to go to the next step.
Step 3 - Increase your knowledge; find more information from different sources
Before we can successfully start a big change in our lifestyle, we must have enough theoretical information about the subject. Without knowledge, we get stuck in the beginning, and then we lose our motivation and lose our way.
Luckily, information can be obtained in many ways, but some sources of information must be taken with a bit more scepticism. You can find reliable information if you learn to filter out the nonsense.
For example - discuss with people who have succeeded, join Facebook groups, but don't simply follow the advice of every "armchair expert"!
If you want to delve deeper into the subject, buy a book about it.
Reading always pays off, said Finnish writer Jörn Donner. The problem is that people get stuck in the “paralysis of analysis” and are unable to take the next step.
Step 4 - Replace old habits with new ones
An excellent book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg highlights how important it is to find new habits to replace old and unwanted ones.
Immediately quitting an old habit hardly ever gives permanent results. We have to analyse openly and honestly the habits which prevent us from reaching a state that we are striving for.
Replacing old habits with new ones is an incremental process and a setback is usually caused by trying too many things at once. Preferably replace 15 minutes of TV with 15 minutes of reading or one cigarette a day with a 5-minute walk.
According to Duhigg, small changes eventually cause big changes for other aspects of life. Small positive results give us motivation to keep on going and developing.
Patience is the key.
Step 5 - Accept "failure"
Do you feel that you always fail when you try? Failure is a part of the process.
You must prepare for it. If we avoid it and just concentrate only on success, we burn out and crash.
It's particularly important to accept setbacks and failures beforehand. Because every process of change includes setbacks and outright failures.
Dieters, entrepreneurs, alcoholics and kids’ parents know it.
Therefore, we should not see it as failing because every error or setback is an experience - a possibility to analyse and learn. It is a part of a change.
The road to our goal is not straight. If we accept that and forgive ourselves, we will rise faster and continue our lifestyle change.
Step 6 - Prioritise
In the book “High-Performance Habits” Brendon Burchard says that people who monitor their progress regularly are 2.5 times more likely to succeed in their goals. Monitoring motivates them to stay on track towards their goals and prioritise their energy.
I monitor my weight and caloric intake almost every morning because, without that, I would forget how important a process it is to me.
The other principle in a continuous successful lifestyle change is prioritising.
It is an outright impossibility for the modern person to fit “all of the important things” in a 16-hour day.
In his book, “The One Thing”, Gary Keller teaches that in every aspect of life, we should determine one most important thing that takes all of our attention and time, or else we end up with a lot of things that are not achievable.
I am not much of an advocate of “a balanced life” because I know how many secondary things must be left undone to achieve goals.
Life is full of cruel prioritising.
Step 7 - Embrace obsession
In all processes of change where something better is the goal, “failures” are inevitable.
But despite how many times we fall down, we have to get back up.
A small amount of obsession is a good thing. Most of us know the feeling of being so excited about something that we cannot think about anything else. And that obsession quickly takes us past our setbacks.
I give myself the freedom to obsess about big goals because I know it will help me through more difficult times.
Grant Cardone says in his book, “Be Obsessed or Be Average”, that obsession is a necessity if you want great results, and that without it results will be mediocre or non-existent.
Most of the time I agree.
Step 8 - Develop permanent systems for change
In “The Power of Habit” Duhigg explains how habits are formed and how they work.
When you are learning how to drive a car, you must constantly watch the speed, steering wheel, traffic signs, gears and pedals. After a month or two, these things come automatically. But how?
Our brains learn to move repeating tasks into our subconsciousness so that they do not require constant notice and energy from us.
The same happens with lifestyle changes.
Healthy eating, regular exercise and bedtime become automatic after a few months.
There are bound to be setbacks, nothing is 100% perfect, but we know now that by following a system and understanding our own mind, creating the habit is already significantly easier.
Success happens every day when you decide to change.
