Can’t keep goals? Here’s how to change that.
Having a goal-oriented mind frame is the key to being able to produce change until you get the desired results. Most people have a hard time keeping up with a new behavior for a long period of time. This hardship only occurs when the new habit wasn’t formed and you experience struggle. Your inner understanding and self talk will be something like this: ” I am making myself do this”, ” It does not feel natural or second nature”, “I cannot do this anymore”, “I am ready to give up”.
What is happening is that your already formed and often used neuro-pathway (brain connector with encoded information) is doing it’s job and telling you that you are safe as you are now. “Please keep on doing what you know. This is safe. I am afraid. Do not store me away.” In short, you are missing your old behavior, the one you are comfortable with. Therefore, you are not really acquainted with the new behavior pattern you are trying to create a neuro-pathway for.
If your goal is to lose weight, for example, which is my very life’s lived example, you will find that you can stick with that diet for a while.Yet, that old behavior that is common to you will knock the door of your thought-life, and give you a lot of excuses for which it is OK to give up or to cheat on a non-cheat day. You will dialog with those excuses and accept them, feeling comfort in that food or drink, thinking something like: “I’ll start again tomorrow”. Every thought is a seed, and it evolves (no way around it my friend), so you will most likely grow that thought larger and larger until you actually give up. Soon you will start experiencing guilt, failure and, many times, your overall self-esteem decreases.
Awareness, key ingredient in any change we pursue
We keep on finding new ways of dealing with life, and we share it with each other. This is my very passion, and so I love sharing what I discover and/or understand, with you. Why? Because it is key to understand something new and apply it in your practical life in order to achieve something new. Doing what you know and repeating what you have done before will only give you the same result you have had before. Adding a new behavior to what we did before, due to a new awareness or doing something totally new, will give us different results.
When you can see tomorrow, you can find the strength to carry on with today’s hardships
I find it especially helpful to practice awareness on a daily basis, and staying focused on the end result. There are a lot of practices nowadays to stay focused.
- Create a vision board with pictures and quotes that remind you of where you have decided to go with your life.
- Journal your experience.
- Visualize the end product.
- Speak as though you are already enjoying the new fruit of your labor.
The most important thing is to find a way in which you can stimulate hope into that cause. Whichever method you use, remember to ignite the fire as you journey through the achievement of this goal.
The method I would like to add to the previously mentioned ones is this: “Pay special attention to your self talk”. I emphasize on this often, because you can be your own best friend or your worse one. The way you speak to yourself will let you see yourself in your inner mirror as a valued, loved and deserving person, or it will let you see yourself as a not enough, unloved, non-deserving person. Funny enough, we act and react upon how we see ourselves inside.
Just like you correct a child when he or she does something wrong, you will need to correct the unhealthy thought and replace it with a healthy one for as long as it keeps on resurfacing in your mind, until your brain creates a new neuro-pathway. This in turn will create a belief system that will replace the unhealthy one. At this point, your inner mirror would have changed to see the amazing you that you are.
You can do this!
With much love,
Alicia Yombalakian