Every year people hastily make new year resolutions that inevitably get broke within the first week of the new year (if not by the end of the first day). People are eager to change and make themselves or their lives better, but usually lack the will power to see it through. Why is that? Can a new year resolution stick and be the catalyst to change that most seek?
I believe it can. The key is to make a resolution that is not over-the-top or so daunting that commitment to change is gone before the year has even started. I have seen many times people pull out there “list” of new year resolutions as a badge of honor showing how they are going to revolutionize their life or the world around them. Only to find a week or two later, when asked about their “list”, that they tossed it in the trash and are back to their normal routine.
Why not start with something simple. Limit your resolution to one thing you want to see change. Maybe that one thing is still too monstrous to tackle all at once. Then break it down to actionable and achievable steps that can be spread out over time. You may even limit to changing one step a year, or maybe half a year or quarter. It takes time to develop new habits. Most of us have spent our lives developing the habits and behaviors we currently demonstrate. So, don’t expect to undo several years of fortification in a week, a month, or even one year.
A great place to start with change is the way we think. All of our actions are an external portrayal of what we think. You may have heard it said before that a thought leads to an action and an action repeated enough times leads to a habit. Therefore, it stands to reason that in order to change our habits, we need to change our thinking. Most people fixate on the action of their behavior and try to change the behavior without addressing their thoughts. This will almost always, if not always, end in failure. The root of the matter is in our minds.
So, if you want to change how you treat others, change how you think about others. If you want to change how you react to certain behaviors of others, change how you think about that behavior. Ask yourself “why do they act that way?”. Begin to train your mind to see things from their perspective. This may, over time, effect how you behave and thus change your own habits.
To take this one step further, our thoughts are governed by what we put into our minds in the first place. What are you filling your mind with? What are you watching on TV? What are you reading? What are you listening to? All of these factors contribute to what we dwell on and result in how we behave. Are brains are complex organs, but what we put in is what we get out. So, in a nutshell to change our output we need to change our input.
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