FALSE: You can’t change overnight

Newsun

Believe in Good
Thành viên thân thiết
Tham gia
20/4/2008
Bài viết
9.433
“We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle said, and so becoming a whole new person—a smarter, fitter, wealthier, sexier person—is only a matter of breaking some habits and building others. Humans are an animal the survives by finding patterns, and routines or habits gives us an anchor for our lives. This can be a powerful tool for maximizing our ability, but if you want to change your life, you have to change your habits.

If instead of making an annual list of New Years Resolutions which end up abandoned in days you committed to breaking one bad habit and starting one good habit every 3-4 months, in a year you could revolutionize your entire life. Such change can be instantaneous and the notion that you can’t be a different person, a better person tomorrow than you are today is quite simply false. Two simple steps guide success in making instant lasting habitual changes: have a good reason, and set simple rules. Here we will talk about the first step, having a good reason for the changes you make; we discuss the second step–setting clear and unbreakable rules–elsewhere.

Too often we go into a lifestyle change with no reason or bad reasons. Guys think seduction is about s.ex with a lot of different good looking women when a girlfriend is what they really want. When they have one bad night they’ll quit because they went in for the wrong reason. People try to stop smoking to prevent health problems that are still abstract to the smoker. Withdrawal is a lot more painful immediately, emphysema only somewhere down the line and the smoker will relapse. Other people see something on TV about slaughterhouses and try and give up meat. Mom serves meatloaf that weekend and they give in.

If these people had better reasons, concrete reasons, they would have the strength to stick with their changes. Going into seduction can help you meet a girlfriend and keep your relationship interesting. Quitting smoking so you can survive a transatlantic flight you will be taking or to save money for a specific purpose can be great motivators for some people. Giving up meat so you can dramatically lower your cholesterol gives you concrete benchmarks to motivate your perseverance.

We all know the power of this practice from our own experience, even if we haven’t noticed it. In college or in periods of unemployment it can be easy to start sleeping in everyday, and getting up at 7 or 8 o’clock will seem next to impossible. If you get a job, however, and have to be there by 9, you will fall into the habit of getting up early within a couple of days. The tricky part is doing self-analysis and learning your own desires for life so you can compel yourself for your own reasons, not because another entity (your boss or school) makes you do it.

Finding the right reason for a change involves learning about what you really want out of life, it demands an honesty about yourself. Maybe you don’t have a good reason for making a change, but feel compelled to make it anyways because other people or “society” tell you that you should want to make it. Most people keep trying to make the change over and over again, failing each time and loading themselves up with guilt and shame. This is incredibly unhealthy and robs you of your own life. Either come up with a reason of your own, one that really resonates with you or otherwise compels you or own your refusal to change. Alternatively, recognize the habit as a bad one, but prioritize other changes which will give you the confidence and creativity to address this habit later. Life is a process of growth, and there will always be areas for improvement.

Finding a good reason for your change thus enables you to change your life rapidly without being in a hurry. Small changes—one habit broken, another built up—can produce big differences in your life and open new doors of opportunity for you. Over time you can form yourself into a more perfect being, and it can all start immediately. Find out more and get started today!
A TV psychologist once said “we judge ourselves

 
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