Maintaining our Goals, or even achieving them, is so hard for us all.
We know this otherwise we would all have the body we desire, be as fit as we desire, have the business we desire and so on. So, what is it that seems to stop us in our tracks?
We often get frustrated that we start with a diet, exercise regime, marketing plan etc. full of enthusiasm, no doubt get good results initially and then stop! Not only do we stop, but we usually end up exactly where we started.
You are probably not going to be surprised when I say it’s because of what’s going on in your head and by that I don’t mean you haven’t got a positive enough Mindset, or you haven’t got the desire, the willpower etc.
It is not to do with that at all.
Yes it’s to do with Mindset and Brain science and here is a brief explanation of why this happens:
The part of our brain called the Basal Ganglia drives routine activities (habits), it does this so well that we can often run on a form of autopilot – think driving a car, we drive without the need for conscious thought about the action of driving – a habit.
Habits are something which we do repeatedly and often end up doing them on autopilot – cleaning teeth etc.
Habits are driven from the unconscious mind, not the conscious mind.
Remember, the unconscious mind is where the power is – this guy wins every time!
So, obviously if we’ve been around for a long time we have created many habits.
Now, can you create a new habit like, for example, healthy eating?
Of course we can……..but for it to become a habit we will have to overwrite the old habit, unhealthy eating, and create a new habit – healthy eating.
The Basal Ganglia loves its patterns, its habits and it doesn’t want to give them up easily so we have to work hard to create a new habit.
A habit is created by doing the same thing repeatedly, BUT for it to stick, it has to be IMPORTANT to you. In other words, you have to have a WHY that feels emotive to you as this gives it more importance, i.e. you need an INTENTION.
Let’s go back to the healthy eating example: you want to lose weight, losing the weight is really important to you, you want to lose weight by a specific time as you have a holiday coming up. There’s your intention and importance and you will be doing the healthy eating daily, so there’s the repetition. You start to lose weight, you may even achieve your desired weight, but after the holiday the weight creeps back on.
How frustrating as you thought you had created a new habit!
So what went wrong? The importance, and hence the intention, changes without us noticing: as we get into our healthy eating we start to focus on things like, only 2 weeks left then I can eat what I like again, I will be able to eat all the foods I love, drink the wine again, have a good time, etc etc.
Can you see what’s happened? The STOPPING has now become the important thing here – the intention shifts from losing the weight to eating all the things I love when this ‘diet’ ends i.e. STOPPING/FAILING the diet.
This means we become really good at creating the habit of stopping/failing!
The healthy eating Habit has never truly formed. The conscious has not been able to overwrite the unconscious because your conscious Intention didn’t end up matching the intention in your unconscious mind – the unconscious mind always wins.
But, what about Willpower? Willpower will not create a new sustainable habit – willpower is basically forcing yourself to do stuff you don’t truly want to do – the unconscious mind won’t be fooled by this.
You will only voluntary repeat the things you enjoy doing.
Want sustainable change in your life, want to create a new habit?
You have to look at what you ENJOY, you have to make it fun, otherwise you are trying to use willpower and not creating habit.
Whatever area you are trying to change, ask yourself
“How can I make this more fun?”
“Will this make me enjoy life more or less?”
Give regular attention to the thing you want to change – focus on it, think about it, write it down, talk about it etc.
Make sure it’s truly IMPORTANT to you. That means that you should feel emotion associated with whatever you’re trying to change – if it’s not Important to you it’s virtually impossible for you to create a Habit.
Be aware that your INTENTION doesn’t change (it will if you don’t enjoy what you are doing)
and of course Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
The way I like to think about it is:
SMALL + FUN = CHANGE
I’m a big fan of small, achievable, fun steps – that way you don’t create the Habit of Failure 🙂
………have you noticed how I use this in Pilates?
– I stick with a similar programme for the term, slowly building difficulty (Repetition)
– I make the class fun and social (Enjoyable)
– I keep you informed on the benefits of certain exercises (Importance)
=> thus creating a Habit of doing your Pilates 🙂