DOES SOMETHING NEED TO CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE?
WELL, GUESS WHAT? CHANGE MEANS CHANGING HABITS.
Okay, you want to change? Something needs to change? Someone? Our recently elected president came to office on a commitment to change. Any honest observer knows that we need to change. If you’re experiencing any kind of frustration, obviously, you want things to be different than they are. That’s change.
Options for change…
Change the circumstances
Change your mind/perception/self
While we may desire change and feel we need it, we often overlook the fact that change involves changing a habit. Habits by their very nature resist change. But unless you’re willing to recognize that you need to actually change a habit for change to occur, forget it, change ain’t going to happen, including the habit of not wanting to change—(after all, if it changes…it just might get worse).
Did you ever notice, you’ll get this great urge to change something in your life…in the world…and yet…as much as you think it should happen, it doesn’t? You read the right books, you’re inspired by them. You take a workshop that seems to actually change you, and yet the change doesn’t stick. Whether it’s changing your diet, different ways of relating/reacting to others, starting a new exercise program, changing the world…things that you think you should do to make life better for you, for others, for society, and for nature… the call for change is very compelling but often very difficult.
Well, guess what…it’s not enough to change your conscious mind. For change to happen, you have to engage your subconscious.. After all, what part of the mind is currently controlling your habits?
Not your conscious mind. No…whether it’s as simple as putting food on a fork and guiding it into your mouth, or as complex as re-visioning and reordering society, it necessarily involves working not only with the conscious mind, but also with the subconscious mind.
This requires understanding how the subconscious works, how habits are formed, and how they’re broken and how new habits are established. Beyond this understanding, it also requires the tools, training and the support to make it happen.
I envision the conscious mind as like a scout of a wagon train. The scout can get on his horse and gallop off to parts unknown, find game, check out the countryside, even take a look over the crest and see the vista of the sought after destination…but then there’s the wagon train…wagons, oxen, feuding families, breakdowns, disease, chaos…much harder to get moving than the unencumbered scout. Well, in some ways, that’s what the subconscious is like.
So once your conscious mind has determined to change something about you (we’ll deal with needed societal changes later), you will need to re-program your sub-conscious accordingly.
Your sub-conscious, the part of your mind that controls your habits–is doing a very good job of maintaining the habits you’ve already set up…like going to the refrigerator and eating a pint of chocolate milky sugary frozen goo instead of the 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise your body really needs.
Your sub-conscious is going to require a great deal of persuasion in order to change that habit. Not only is it programmed to go for the frozen milky gooey stuff, but it and you really enjoy that sweet comfort food. It’s much more fun than 30 minutes of intense, sweat producing exercise.
This also holds true when you want to change things like your habit of judging yourself for eating the goo and not doing the exercise…and your automatic shame when someone catches you eating the goo.
Now, just imagine how difficult it is to get the people that don’t agree with you who are doing bad things to society to change their habits. They are habituated to doing the things that piss you off…that they need to change. What they’re doing obviously feels good to them, or, while they might recognize that change is needed, they will inevitably confront the same subconscious resistance to change that you do… and you’re motivated.
This is why it’s good to practice changing yourself as it allows you to appreciate just how difficult it is going to be to change anyione else. And who knows…maybe when you’ve changed yourself, the changes “out there” might not even be necessary.
And by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, you probably don’t want to actually change, unless you’re desperate or in pain. Or, if you’re a rare bird, you recognize the positive attributes that will result from the change that you know in your heart need to happen and that will in turn motivate you to go through the necessary focus and effort that the transition of change requires.
So it’s good to start with little things just to get you into the “habit” of making change. Here is an outline of the steps for making change…especially change that improves the quality of your life.
1. Determine what change needs to happen.
2. Strengthen the motivation to make that change.
3. Learn the tools and techniques of change
4. Reprogram the subconscious to make the change.
5. Get support, be patient with yourself, and persevere..
We’ll get more into the details of the steps once you have persuaded yourself that change really needs to happen and have accessed the motivation. I look forward to hearing from you, and I’m eager to support you in making whatever changes you feel are necessary for your life and that which you care about.