It’s easy to try to tackle too much or too little and fail in changing when you don’t make a well thought out plan based on your goals and capabilities.To achieve your dream, you need to set small goals. They don’t necessarily have to be grand but they must be something that’s easy to achieve and realistic.

Not Having Goals

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. For change to come, you should be willing to change your current position in life.You should have a stronger character that believes that a solution is possible. Teach your mind that you are not defined by your problems.

Solving Problems 

To break a pattern, identify and change your routine until you forget your current life. Rewrite your perfect day and live it for at least a month.

Breaking Your Life Pattern

If you base your actions on a certain purpose, the friction of doing and not doing becomes easier. Without purpose, your efforts won’t be successful, as success is measured by what you achieve.Finding your purpose is a tough task and it changes as you mature, but it is your personal responsibility. Figure out what you like and what you want to do for the rest of your life, to make change easier.

Not Having A Purpose

If you don’t plan on what to do, you will find yourself in the same position you were yesterday.Replace your bad habits with a good habit. Don’t just run away from them.

Replacing Old Habits

Having a system of rewards and punishments will make the process of changing less daunting as you have multiple points of rewarded success leading to a larger one.To change yourself faster, learn to associate what you want to do with a reward.

Using a Reward System

A motivational spike tends to go down as excitement wears off. The brain is designed to keep us away from a problem; not to easily put the effort that could change us for good.Try the three-second rule. It consists of deciding within three seconds to do what you need to do. The technique teaches you to snap out of it in three seconds and force your mind to do what needs doing.

Making Motivation Dependent Plans

The world is much more connected and more information is easily available than in the past. We have many more choices and they change fast.The reality is that life is progress. It demands constant change and tweaking of what exists. There is no perfection. What exists is change and change needs time. So, be patient.

Despairing Easily

Change is hard. In fact, it is one of the hardest things one has to go through in life. They say the secret of life is to grow. And growth needs constant changes and improvements. People constantly struggle with changing their habits and making their lives better.

Problem Solving

8 Good Reasons Why Change Is Hard

In this stage of change, individuals commit to the intention of changing in the immediate future and have accepted the costs and benefits. What determines the success of an individual in this stage is their commitment to exploring, planning and insuring.Set up contracts with yourself, by setting specific measurable goals, and detailing how you will accomplish the task at hand, including contingencies in order to stay on track.

Preparation

In this stage of change, individuals are aware of the behavioral change they desire; however, they have no conscious intention of altering their behavior. They may be strongly influenced by pressure from others who are aware of their problems.Instilling motivation towards change within is key in this stage. This can be done by educating oneself on the behavioral change that is up for debate.

Pre-Contemplation

In this stage of change, an individual acknowledges the problem and begins an internal debate about pursuing change. A lot of time may be spent in this stage as many may not be ready to commit to changing.People often get stuck in this stage going back and forth between measuring the benefits and costs of behavioral change. A thorough cost-benefit analysis followed by a troubleshooting session can be helpful here, especially if it is done in written form.

Contemplation

In this stage of change, individuals move from planning to doing and have been making significant behavioral changes for a while. Here we make substantial adjustments to our relationships, routines, environments, and perhaps even to ourselves in order to further the change we desire.Continually reflect on the advantages of the commitment you have made, check in with your plans, be kind to yourself when you relapse and give yourself positive reinforcement.

Action 

In this stage, the change has been established for the past six months and the threat of returning to old behaviors becomes less intense or frequent.There is always a chance of relapsing to old behaviors and re-cycling through the stages, so it’s important to continue planning for events that may trigger it. Recalling what helped through previous stages, reflecting upon mistakes made and how to prevent them without over analyzing or judging will help here.

Maintenance 

change /Chānj/ verb: make or become different noun: the act or instance of making or becoming different. Change, transformation, alteration ... however one may choose to name it, can be seen all around us.

Why Is Change So Hard?

Change is never just one thing, it’s a lot of connected things, and sustained change doesn’t happen without a process that wraps in all of the pieces.Long-term behavior change involves steps. It’s a tough, process-oriented challenge to slowly change the behavior and believing otherwise demotivates.

Underestimating The Process

It’s almost never possible to tackle all of a change at once. We have to start with particular, very specific and measurable actions.Each specific action is one forkful of behavior change and a set of those actions engaged over time results in a cumulative change. And accompanying those cumulative actions, we need realistic and specific goals as they provide targets to measure ourselves against.

More Than We Can Handle

Trying to take on multiple behaviors at once is a surefire way to send all of them into a ditch. The resources we rely on to make change happen are limited: attention, self-control, motivation, etc.But other areas of our lives also use those resources, so even just one additional behavior-change commitment is a big deal. Trying to change too much places unrealistic demands on those resources and dooms the efforts early on.

Try Too Much

We must be somewhat knowledgeable about what we need to change in order to come up with and set up a practical plan that will lead to sustained change. Some of the knowledge and tools necessary will be specific to us, others universal, but without putting the effort we won’t find either.

Neglecting The Tools

Feeling overwhelmed by trying to change a behavior often makes us charge into change, and see failure as a sign of incapacity. But this straps us into a no-win situation because you are unlikely to sustain the initial momentum to change for long. If we really want to change, one of the first things we have to do is take all-or-nothing off the table, and purge a few other thinking errors while we’re at it.

Trapped By Thinking Fallacies

Negative emotions may trigger us to think about everything we’re not doing, or feel like we’re doing wrong, but they're ineffective for making changes that stick. Real change needs a positive platform to launch from; we need positive, self-edifying reasons for taking on the challenge.

Motivated By Positive Emotions

Failing is part of the process, and it’s probably going to happen more than once. Failing reveals to you what deserves your attention and energy in the next round.See failing as a step, not the end or an excuse to stop trying.

Failure Is Common

Behavior change research tells us that not making a commitment leads to failure.We need a "commitment device" that firmly establishes what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. Everything else starts there.

Making Commitments

Changing our behavior is a self-engineering challenge with few equals. I'm talking about long-term, sustained change, not short-run bursts that sputter out before real change happens. Whether the change involves diet, exercise, habits, dependencies or anything else, changing behavior is one of the hardest things any of us will ever try to do.

Eight Reasons Why It's So Hard To Really Change Your Behavior

Acknowledge what you want to change, observe and wonder why you are the way you are.When you catch yourself repeating an unwanted habit, stop, remember you’re doing it out of habit and that it isn’t the right thing to do.

Make Change Stick Around

Label your negative habit as a symptom of something deeper. Get to know your false beliefs. Ask, “Why do I behave or think this way? ”.Once you notice yourself engaging in the habit, refocus on a positive, wholesome, ideally pleasure-giving activity.

Refocus

Our brain makes strong connections based on repetitive thoughts and actions in order to expend less energy. Change makes your brain diverge from those established connections, so it resists.Constantly redirecting our natural tendencies, to new ones, our bodies eventually adapt and adjust.

Change And The Brain

We often don’t notice our repetitive behavior unless someone is there as a mirror. Having someone we trust aware of the issue adds accountability and a way of measuring progress for the changes we seek.Regardless of the support, you must take the initiative and act by yourself. Procrastination will only keep you in the same state if not worse.

Get Support And Act

Find Out How To Embrace It We've experienced those moments where we commit to change but are later hit with resistance. We forge ahead, determined as heck, and just when we feel like we get the hang of it. Boom. We need to take a minute (sometimes months) to regain momentum because we've been knocked so hard .

Why change is so damn hard, according to science

Testing and validating ideas in smaller groups is a great Trojan Horse for more meaningful changes. But regardless of meaningfulness, change takes time.Humans don’t deal well with big changes. And it’s important to stay strong and not get frustrated if the progress is slower than you’d hoped.

Change Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Changing is necessary and takes energy but our brains tend to try to conserve energy as much as possible. So we have mental biases that influence our behaviors and make us shy away from opportunities—even when they benefit us in the long-term.Two of the main bias are loss aversion and failure bias. The former is our tendency to keep what we have rather than gain something equivalent, and the latter is our tendency to assume failure is a more likely outcome than success, and, as a result, treat successful outcomes as flukes and bad results as confirmation of it.

Why Change Is So Hard

“Role Modelling” is one of the main factors behind successful change in organizations and consists of inspiring change by example.While leadership will ultimately give you sign-off, the rest of the team will determine its success. So in an organizational setting, you must convince everyone of the necessity of change.

Make Change a Team Effort

Showing the positive outcomes of their work can be a huge motivating factor and can balance out pessimism. Meet with people in a place where they can be open, honest, and vulnerable.Unless you’ve got a high-trust environment, you’re going to bring ideas up and people will dance around the issue or only say a few things. But when you talk to them individually you can explain what’s happening, what changes they should expect, and assure them that you’re going to follow up and help them.

Build Trust

A habit gets formed when we do an action and repeatedly receive a positive result. However, with change, the benefits are often not immediately obvious.You need to be able to track the behavior change you want to see in the workplace so you can have a sense of progress and reward. Ideally, use automated time and task tracking tools as they collect more data and are more precise than self-reporting.

Track Progress And Show Value

It’s always exciting to bring a new tool you’re excited about to your team. But they might resist as even if the tool is free, there are costs with learning and switching, even productivity costs.One way to get past this is to remove tools before adding new ones.

Recognize The Benefits Of a New Tool

In a collection of individuals, one bad seed can kill all the hard work you’re putting in. You must understand who you are working with so you can tailor your message and actions so no one becomes a bad seed. To do this, sort your team in the following categories:<ul><li>Fast Yes: those on your team and ready to work to implement the change.</li><li>Slow Yes: slightly skeptical but still open and can see the value in what you’re doing.</li><li>Fast No: quick to dismiss change but clarity and decisiveness can change that and turn them into strong supporters.</li><li>Slow No: look like they can be persuaded but have already decided against you and will stall and undermine. Here, convincing by example is the best route.</li></ul>

Know Who You’re Dealing With

Anyone who's ever tried to break a bad habit, start working out, or learn a new skill knows that change is hard for all of us. As human beings, we're wired to love routine. And anything that challenges the tried-and-true is going to face serious resistance.

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Why Change Is Hard

32 STASHED IDEAS

8 Good Reasons Why Change Is Hard

Why Is Change So Hard?

Eight Reasons Why It's So Hard To Really Change Your Behavior

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Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Why Change Is Hard

32 STASHED IDEAS

8 Good Reasons Why Change Is Hard

Why Is Change So Hard?

Eight Reasons Why It's So Hard To Really Change Your Behavior

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career