Why can’t I change my habits? What is wrong with me? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard these questions. There is a wealth of information available to us, yet many of us are still unable to create the change that we most desire. Why is this? Over the last 10 years, I’ve gathered a wealth of knowledge and experience around creating lasting change, not only supporting my clients, but also myself.
From everything that I have read, learned and experienced, I have found that if you apply these 3 simple scientific concepts, you will be startled at your results.
1. If you are not creating, you are at default to what is.
2. In order to grow you must pass through the resistance, in other words, you must be bigger than
your emotions.
3. We don’t change because we can’t, but because we don’t reinforce change long enough.
Before we dive into the 3 simple concepts to change, let’s quickly look at the science of change.
When you are asking yourself the question why can’t I change my habits? How does that make you feel? Does that bring your energy up or does this take your energy down? I am sure that it brings it down, it might make you feel stuck, hopeless, or even frustrated. To create change, you need to understand that mastering emotions plays a huge role.
You are creating your emotions every day by the thoughts that you have and the associations you hold. Therefore, it is so important that when you want to create change, you bring your energy up and higher than the current energy, and not lower.
How do you do this? How do you change your emotions and energy?
Every thought that you have, ignites an emotion in you. Your thoughts will make you feel positive or negative, and depending on how you feel, you will take different action. If you want to change, you need to focus on influencing your emotions and changing your thoughts.
As Dr Joe Dispenza says, 90% of your thoughts are the same as yesterday’s, and most of our thoughts are not positive. If you are not thinking differently, then you are creating the same results as yesterday, and nothing will change. This is because your reality is made up of your personality, and your personality is made up of your thoughts, your feelings and your behaviour. Everything starts with how you are thinking.
If you want to change, you have to break your patterns of thinking, to purposely think new thoughts and to generate new emotions from there. There is a huge difference between thinking positively and feeling positive. Affirmations don’t work for some people because they use them at a surface level, not believing it. You can repeat to yourself over and over again, I can do this….I can do this, but unless you feel like you can do this when you are saying it, you won’t change. You will still feel conflict, so change won’t be easy. It starts with changing your thoughts and matching your energy to them.
If you can apply these 3 simple concepts of change into your life, you will see a difference.
3 simple concepts to change
1. If you are not creating you are default to what is.
As you know, the things you say to yourself will either create an energy that makes it easier to take action and change or it will create an energy and emotion that makes it more difficult. But to change you must not only change the way you are thinking, but you also need to change the way you feel.
We all can hear the voice inside of our head, we can listen to this voice and follow it and believe what it says, or we can also choose to ignore the voice, but what we resist persists. Finally, you can also choose to lead the Voice.
To change you need to challenge your thoughts and think differently than you currently do. How do you do this? You can start by asking yourself, How would the ´new you´ think in this situation? Or How would your future self want to react?
Let´s say for example, when you wake up in the morning, your default thoughts are; ´ugh, another day´and then you start listing everything you need to do in your mind, worrying about your day ahead before it has started. Imagine instead if you repeated to yourself, ´I’m so glad I’m awake, I’m so excited for today and my intention is to have a great day.´ Imagine if you repeated this over and over again, each time believing it more and more, focusing on these thoughts until you can feel it in your body.
Moving forward, you want to bring awareness to your thoughts when you are not feeling good, and replace the disempowering thoughts by purposely thinking more positively. What if…things worked out ok…what if…it wasn’t so bad, etc. Remember that if you are not creating new thoughts you are default to what is and what is, is what you are trying to change. If you stay in the same energy every day, you are not creating change, you are living in the same emotional home, that will continue to give you the results that you don’t want.
2. In order to grow you must be bigger than your emotions.
This is so important in change. When you decide to change, you will sense what most people describe as resistance, which is actually a positive signal that you are changing and pushing yourself to do something different. You want to feel the resistance and go through it, that is when you will grow. If you want to change but you stop when it feels uncomfortable, you will not have what you desire.
Another way our emotions hold us back is when you use emotions as a reason to not do something. Í was feeling unmotivated, I was tired, I was feeling overwhelmed, etc. Lots of feelings happening here that get in the way.
However, your emotions cannot lead. This creates chaos. It is like watching a person walk a dog, but the dog is walking the person instead, leading them all over the place. Being bigger than your emotions means that you lead, you don´t not do something because of how you are feeling. Your feelings are programmed into the past, remember that. Your mind must lead, do not focus on how you feel, think about what you want instead and keep that focus. Your mind must be stronger than the feelings at that moment.
This takes practice, it is not easy to start and change does not happen overnight, but with consistency you can start to get into the practice of putting your emotions aside, focusing on what it is you do want to do, and not letting the resistance be the reason you don’t. Meditation helps a lot in building your focus muscle and leading your mind.
3. We don’t change because we can’t, but because we don’t reinforce change long enough
This is also such an important key takeaway in change. There are four levels of change and competence in this. Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence.
For you to change, you need to be at level four where change is unconscious, where you don´t need to make an effort anymore and you are also competent in the change, you can do it without thinking. Most of us take our foot off the gas when we are conscious and competent, which is at level 3. We know how to do it now and we are remind ourselves to do it. ´Reminding´ however means that it is not unconscious, meaning the new habit has not been reinforced enough to be a lasting habit. A habit is when you do something unconsciously.
Basically, you need to reinforce change long enough so that you do not need to put in any effort anymore or any thought, until you are the change. If you create a new change every single day for at least 30 days or a month and a half, you will notice that your life has changed. Most people don’t do this. Most people don’t make a conscious daily effort to change every day, never mind reinforcing change daily for 30 days.
Remember that change should be fun, it is about embracing growth, being compassionate with yourself, and enjoying the process of creating more of what you want. Change doesn’t need to be about fear, procrastination, feeling bad about ourselves, and giving up when we feel hopeless.
You are the creator of your reality, you are in charge and you can do this! I have shared 3 simple concepts of change with you today that may seem simple, but these are the 3 keys to changing habits. When you master them, your world becomes limitless.
If you need any support, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you feel I can help you to finally make the changes that you desire.
“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two
stands Resistance.”
― Steven Pressfield
