How to make LASTING change in your life
photo by Floris Andréa
If you’re here, you’re likely a person who strives for self-improvement.
Maybe you have some “less-than-excellent” habits you want to change.
Or maybe you just want to improve yourself, to:
Be your best.
Feel your best.
Live up to your full potential.
All the things!
You have so many goals you want to accomplish and things you want to do in this life—and you want to do them all RIGHT NOW.
I get it.
Maybe your goals look something like this:
to become fluent in French,
to do 45 minutes of cardio per day,
to read a non-fiction book for 30 minutes each morning, and
to go vegan, raw, and totally quit sugar — all in the next month.
All very noble habits to cultivate.
Let’s just not try to tackle them ALL AT ONCE.
truth:
Trying to change too much too fast = epic fail
Trying to “improve” too much about yourself all at once will only lead to overwhelm and failure.
It’s not sustainable. Your brain and body will short-circuit.
I’m thinking of this now, because my cousin-in-law...
“cousin-in-law”—is that a thing?
Anyway...
He was just telling us on a Zoom call that he’s decided to quit eating meat for 30 days.
This man eats meat for multiple meals-a-day and he’s quitting cold turkey (pun-intended).
Therefore...
Me to him: Stop it!
(note: I’m a bit bossy with my family.)
😜
Me (again): If you want to truly change your diet for good, don’t try to cut out all meat all at once. Cut out just ONE thing to start. What’s one thing you eat that is bad for you that you think you could stop eating for one month?
Him: Chicken wings
Me: Great! Just cut out chicken wings for one month. See how that feels.
Who knows if he’ll actually take my advice.
If he does, he’s 443% 😉 more likely to succeed in his ultimate goal of cutting back his meat intake.
I know this works
If you want to eat healthier (or change ANY habit you have), it just takes one ridiculously tiny change.
Don’t be a hero
A meat eater giving up all meat is crazy-talk. That leads to deprivation, scarcity, and illness.
Just one small step at a time
I tried to switch to a “raw” diet about 20 years ago and got ridiculously sick 2 days in. My body was like:
“WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. TO. ME???!”
The only time I’ve seen sustained habit change in myself, and in my friends and clients, is when we start super-slow.
Another food example
When my husband and I wanted to cut out dairy to improve our cholesterol numbers—we:
started slow,
swapping out the dairy milk in our coffee for oat milk.
After that became our new normal, we cut out cheese (with the exception of Lynnhaven goat cheese feta from the NYC Green Market).
And it’s been sustainable.
Slow and steady, baby!
I see this with my clients too
They come to me having tried to get organized by doing an epic full-house clean-up, sometimes even bringing in a professional organizer to do it for them.
But when they put themselves through a crash course in organizing, they can’t keep it up on their own and feel like a failure when things get disorganized again.
Or, they learn one of my time management techniques of putting everything in their calendar, they pack those calendars so tight, they’re no way they could get it all done.
But when they follow my system and go slow, they learn the secrets of sustainable habit change.
What’s our rush, anyway?
We want to be some better version of ourselves because we think life will be better after we [do that thing]. But really, life is always pretty much 50/50.
If you truly want to change a habit, concentrate on one habit at a time.
So simple.
the trick to creating a new habit—
ONE NEW HABIT at a time
Pick one very important thing you’ve always wanted to change and start small.
If you want to workout daily, don’t burn out doing a 100-day challenge of doing an hour of cardio each day. Start with a 7-minute workout every day.
Then, once you’re comfortable with that new small habit, go to a 10- or 15-minute workout. Maybe you hire a trainer for an hour each week.
Say it with me now...
Start small
And please, don’t beat yourself up when “life happens” and you miss a day or two. Just get back on that Falabella* and start again.
92% of failures happen when we are beat ourselves up for missing a day, throw our hands in the air and give up.
Just carry on and start again.
So, what is ONE small change you can start today...? something easy... something that will get you closer to where you want to be?
*Falabella : one of the smallest horse breeds in the world. (See what I did there...? Small step, small horse. Get back on the horse. Get back on the Falabella. Get it...? Get it…? Get it…?) 😃
* * *
Want help?
Click here to book a free, no obligation 40-minute call with me.
This is your chance to ask me anything and find out how I can help you get organized, create new healthy habits, and live a life with less stress and more calm.