This next tip is possibly the hardest.
Be Present and Honest. Living your vision means being aware of your choices as you move through the day. Get clear about what you want your life to look and feel like. As you bring the behavior you wish to change to conscious awareness, pay close attention to your thoughts and feelings surrounding this behavior. Notice the physical and emotional responses that your unwanted behavior evokes. Again, start with one particular behavior rather than overhauling your whole lifestyle at once. Practice mindfulness, being in the moment, or a meditation exercise for a few minutes every day. This will train your mind and body to react differently to the usual stimuli that can trigger the unwanted behaviors.
Do Not Distort Reality. When we live on a conscious level, we become hyper-alert. This insures that our actions, our decisions, and our communications are not influenced by the myriad filters we apply to life. We don’t look through rose colored or black glasses; we choose to look through crystal clear ones that do not distort reality. The key to changing our habits is training ourselves to be more and more conscious of what is really happening. When we do this, we free ourselves from doing the same things over and over again. We learn from our heightened sense of awareness. We begin to see things differently, in a much more objective and clear way.
Notice when you don’t follow through. Ask yourself why, but be careful not to beat up yourself over a lapse. Do you need to alter the motivation or the steps to your new strategy? Was there something that created some doubt in your mind? If so, change it back. The results you get are the product of your thinking, so if you continue to be disappointed at what you achieve, you must be willing to ask yourself some hard questions and change your beliefs.
This ties right back to the Journaling I mentioned in my last post. When you actually document something in writing, you make yourself more accountable and you're more likely to do better.
Keep an Optimistic and Successful Attitude. Changing habits is difficult when we don’t keep ourselves inspired and confident. This is easier to do when you become present and mindful. Being an optimist or a pessimist boils down to the way you talk to yourself. An optimist views a backslide as a temporary setback, not a cause for giving up. An optimist feels that nothing can hold them back from achieving success and reaching their goals. The good news is that even a pessimist can become an optimist with enough practice. All you need to do is to reframe how you define events. Instead of dwelling on the bad experience, or blaming yourself for the failure, think about the outside influences that may have affected your it. Virtually any failure can be turned into a learning experience, which increases your potential for success in the future.
Be Present and Honest. Living your vision means being aware of your choices as you move through the day. Get clear about what you want your life to look and feel like. As you bring the behavior you wish to change to conscious awareness, pay close attention to your thoughts and feelings surrounding this behavior. Notice the physical and emotional responses that your unwanted behavior evokes. Again, start with one particular behavior rather than overhauling your whole lifestyle at once. Practice mindfulness, being in the moment, or a meditation exercise for a few minutes every day. This will train your mind and body to react differently to the usual stimuli that can trigger the unwanted behaviors.
Do Not Distort Reality. When we live on a conscious level, we become hyper-alert. This insures that our actions, our decisions, and our communications are not influenced by the myriad filters we apply to life. We don’t look through rose colored or black glasses; we choose to look through crystal clear ones that do not distort reality. The key to changing our habits is training ourselves to be more and more conscious of what is really happening. When we do this, we free ourselves from doing the same things over and over again. We learn from our heightened sense of awareness. We begin to see things differently, in a much more objective and clear way.
Notice when you don’t follow through. Ask yourself why, but be careful not to beat up yourself over a lapse. Do you need to alter the motivation or the steps to your new strategy? Was there something that created some doubt in your mind? If so, change it back. The results you get are the product of your thinking, so if you continue to be disappointed at what you achieve, you must be willing to ask yourself some hard questions and change your beliefs.
This ties right back to the Journaling I mentioned in my last post. When you actually document something in writing, you make yourself more accountable and you're more likely to do better.
Keep an Optimistic and Successful Attitude. Changing habits is difficult when we don’t keep ourselves inspired and confident. This is easier to do when you become present and mindful. Being an optimist or a pessimist boils down to the way you talk to yourself. An optimist views a backslide as a temporary setback, not a cause for giving up. An optimist feels that nothing can hold them back from achieving success and reaching their goals. The good news is that even a pessimist can become an optimist with enough practice. All you need to do is to reframe how you define events. Instead of dwelling on the bad experience, or blaming yourself for the failure, think about the outside influences that may have affected your it. Virtually any failure can be turned into a learning experience, which increases your potential for success in the future.
“The key to change... is to let go of fear.” - Rosanne Cash
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