How to change
Contributor(s): Shannon O’Brien, MA, EdM. Shannon O’Brien is the founder and chief counselor of Whole U., a career and personality counseling service in Boston, Massachusetts. Through counseling, workshops and e-learning, Whole U. helps people find their dream job and live balanced, meaningful lives. Shannon has been named the No. 1 career and personality coach in Boston, Massachusetts, based on reviews on Yelp. Her work has been talked about on Boston.com, Boldfacers and UR Business Network. She has a master’s degree in technology, innovation, and education from Harvard University.
Number of sources used in this article: 17. You will find a list of them at the bottom of the page.
Number of views of this article: 45 532.
From time to time we all become dissatisfied with something in life and decide that we need a change. If you, too, feel it’s time to make a change in your life, go for it! You can change! It may seem like a daunting task, but there is nothing difficult about it, the main thing is to set clear goals and guidelines for yourself. Change your habits, and soon you will notice that your perception of yourself and the world has changed.
- Start with the positive. Write a list of what you like about yourself, or remember what good things others say about you. It’s important to know your strengths so you can channel them later.
- Try to formulate in one sentence your goal. Make sure it is what YOU want, not what others want from you. Change will come if and only if you sincerely want it.
- Then make a list of reasons why you want to change. All of these reasons will motivate you in your change process.
- Start your sentences with “I.”
- For example, “I am good,” “I work hard,” “I am original.”
- For example, “I can reach my potential,” “I can be what I want to be,” “I can achieve my goals.”
- For example, “I will be who I want to be,” “I will overcome all obstacles,” “I will prove to myself that I can change my life for the better.”
- Close your eyes.
- Imagine your ideal self in the future. Where are you? What are you doing? How has your life changed? What do you look like? What brings you pleasure and happiness now?
- Imagine in detail your ideal life. What does it look like? Try to capture some special sights, smells, and tastes. The detail will make the picture more realistic.
- Now this visualization will help define your goals.
- Be realistic is the best way to handle any situation. Don’t blame yourself or others. Failures happen, there’s no way to avoid them.
Learn a lesson for yourself. [7] X Reliable source Harvard Business Review Go to source Sometimes you will feel like things are bad. That you won’t reach your goal because it’s too high, and eventually you’ll change your goals and take a different path. But remember that failure happens to everyone. If you learn to learn lessons from failures and falls, you can avoid them in the future. [8] X Source of Information
How to change yourself externally and internally and set your life on a new course
I am a writer by profession and a philosopher at heart. I explore the topic of psychology, esoterics, I am a consultant on the archetypes of personality. I have been working as a freelancer for almost 10 years.
Good day, dear subscribers and guests of the blog!
I am almost convinced that before today you have already tried to change your life more than once, but then you went back to where you started. Someone successfully covered up circumstances, someone honestly admitted to a lack of self-discipline, and someone decided that all this motivational advice just doesn’t work. Today I propose to take a more sober look at the situation and talk about how to change yourself.
Just a word of warning: first of all, you will have to learn to take responsibility for everything that happens to you. In other words, you will have to become an adult. No matter what age your passport says.
One more thing. Any information you read, but do not apply in practice will be empty knowledge. You can wave it all away and say, yes I know all this already, but while you do not use it in action, you will remain where you are.
If you haven’t already changed your mind, then I invite you to begin the incredible journey of changing yourself and your life for the better.
Where to Start Changing.
Whatever area of your endeavor, I would recommend that you first realize that this is possible for you.
If you decide to change yourself, you need to be convinced that you can do it. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how much experience you have, who you were in the past, how thick your wallet is, and so on. At any moment you can become the kind of person you could admire.
It’s all about the mindset that each of us is shaped by our upbringing, growing up, and interacting with other people. The vast majority of what we think of ourselves is not our thoughts, but someone else’s. For example, if a girl is told by someone as a child that her legs are not straight enough, she may be embarrassed to walk around in short skirts all her life. And she will not even think about the fact that the person could have said that without thinking or just wanted to hurt out of envy.
I suggest an exercise: write on a sheet of paper all you think negative things about yourself. About appearance, about the character, talents, etc. And now try to remember when and from whom you have heard in your address these things. Know this: you are not responsible for what other people think or say about you. They have their own internal reasons for criticizing and ridiculing someone.
Form your own concrete opinion about yourself, which no one will be able to shake. And always remember: at any time in life you can be different, what you want. Change is a choice. And not changing anything is also your choice.
How to Change Yourself Externally and Internally
No matter what area of your life you’re not happy with, below I’ll give universal instructions and advice that you can easily adjust to your goals. Let’s change yourself on all fronts.
Habits
In simplified terms, the process of changing yourself can be expressed as follows: getting rid of all unnecessary and forming all useful. I suggest that you start with your habits.
Reconsider your bad habits, which are pulling you back in development. For example:
- Smoking;
- alcohol;
- fast food and soda;
- hanging out on social media;
- addiction to television;
- idle chitchat with coworkers and acquaintances;
- Waking up late on weekends;
- parasitic words or foul language, etc.
You can’t give up all your habits in one day. Choose the one that will be easiest for you to get rid of first. For example, aimlessly scrolling through your social media feeds. At first, you can make it a rule to go to social networks only for 10 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening. Then gradually reduce this time as well. You will notice that without social networks nothing really important you are not missing, in addition, appreciate how much free time you have.
It’s the same with the rest of your habits. Reduce the time for them, increase the intervals and don’t let yourself slack off.
I recommend reading how to get rid of bad habits. And not just read, but take and work through all the points.
And here are some good habits to adopt to make your life better (I give examples that you can adapt to yourself):
- Waking up early regardless of the day of the week;
- Jogging or exercising for 10 minutes in the morning;
- A 30-minute reading before going to bed;
- Drinking a glass of warm water on an empty stomach;
- Take a contrast shower before breakfast;
- learn a foreign language for 15 minutes a day;
- Meditate for 5 minutes a day, etc.
Psychologists say that it takes 21 days to develop almost any habit. For convenience, make yourself a visual habit tracker, where you can mark every day when you stick to your new rules with pluses or checkmarks. Also put a reminder on your phone so you don’t forget.
Mindset
Habits are things we do without thinking, i.e. on autopilot. But there is one more thing that we can’t achieve anything better without changing. It is our thoughts. You may have once heard the phrase that you can’t get new results by thinking the same old way. If you are serious about changing your life, you need to change the way you think.
It’s very difficult to suddenly change the way of thinking that you’ve been thinking for years under the influence of your environment, culture, and fashion. To take the right vector, take advantage of the experience of those whose successes you respect.
If you want to improve the area of your finances, look for someone who can help you pump up your money mindset. Watch interviews with wealthy people, read articles by good psychologists and coaches who can help you work through negative attitudes about money, etc.
If your personal life requires attention, look at those who have succeeded in building harmonious relationships, and listen to those who can help you sort out your complexes, self-esteem, self-respect, personal boundaries, etc.
You can also adopt a new system of thinking through books. Read different authors and coaches on self-development and all-round self-pumping, study psychology, choose motivational publications and be inspired by other people’s stories.
Environment
Closely related to the topic of thinking is another one – the environment. It’s who you most often interact with that largely determines how and what you think about day to day. Needless to say, that the environment also determines the success of a person.
If you’re in a group of friends, for whom it is normal to kill their free time in computer games, and on Fridays drinking alcohol and partying until morning, it’s not surprising that your life is not satisfying. Who told you that this way of life is normal? Change your surroundings and you’ll see how vibrant and multifaceted life can be.
Meet smart people. Connect with those who are passionate about their ideas and afraid of wasting free minutes, those who value time and set high goals, those who do not hide behind background data in the form of origin, upbringing, financial capabilities of parents, etc.
Reach out to those who live the life you want to live. Who speaks not about problems and pain, but about prospects and dreams. Look for like-minded people.
I’ll give you a small illustrative example. When a woman has a baby, she starts to communicate with these same young mothers, to learn from their experiences and have more common topics of conversation. But if this woman decides a little later to build a business, it is unlikely she will go to the same mothers on maternity leave for advice. She is likely to communicate with those who have achieved some success in entrepreneurship and can teach something, give advice.
The same should be done if you decide to change. Look for those who will not pull you back, but support you on a new path.
Qualities
Each of us is born with a certain temperament: some are more active and assertive, someone thoughtful and cautious. But here over character traits can work.
Here we are guided by the same principle that we talked about in the section on habits: cut off unnecessary and cultivate useful. What qualities are preventing you from becoming a better person? And what qualities would you like to develop in yourself?
For example, you can form in yourself the following positive qualities:
- Friendliness and sociability, if you want to have more friends;
- Self-organization and reliability, if you often procrastinate and break promises;
- Curiosity and flexibility of mind, if you want to find a job to do and develop as a person;
- A positive outlook on the world, if you often worry and complain, etc.
What negative qualities should be brought under control:
- The habit of reacting aggressively to words and events;
- Envy of others’ successes;
- Hypocrisy;
- arrogance;
- rudeness;
- vindictiveness;
- resentfulness, etc.
Remember that you can become the person you want to be. To get into your new role, imagine yourself in the character you want. How will you behave now? How will you react? What to say? Can be guided by a person who has the features you want. This could be the actor in a movie, a close friend, colleague, the hero of the book, etc.
Since internal progress is more difficult to track than any external changes, I recommend keeping a diary. Write down in it every time you managed to cope with your negative trait and show a positive quality.
