If you were planning a trip to a new village, you’d have to choose between interesting places far from paved roads and destinations that are easily accessible or familiar. The exotic locales would entice you, but when you saw what it took to get there, you might gravitate toward the beaten path.
It’s the same with your all of the little points running through your brain. New goals sound great, but once you start slogging toward them, well-paved paths you’ve already worn into your mind may tempt you. You can build new paths with consistent thinking and doing for forty-five days. Exciting destinations will start to feel good and become accessible, so your old roads will be less tempting.
To establish a new pattern in your mind, you must repeat a new behavior every day. Otherwise, you’ll go back on cruise control, return to old patterns and your next pass will be just as hard as the first. Spark your new trail each day whether or not you feel like it, and you will eventually pass it with ease, feeling happier and better as you go. You may not get the highs of your old happy habit, but you will learn to feel good without artificial highs and their inevitable side effects. You will be pleased with your new habit and it will help you want to build another, and another.
It bears repeating that you will not feel happy on day one. Maintain realistic expectations. Nibbling on carrot sticks will not feel as good as licking an ice cream cone on the first day, and it may not seem that this could change with repetition. Doing homework will not feel as good as watching a movie on day one, and it’s hard to imagine that changing in the beginning. Stick to your plan and you will connect carrot sticks or tune into your happy chemicals. You can learn how to feel good when you do what’s good for you.
Overcome Initial Unpleasantness
The first step is a willingness to do things that don’t feel good at first. This is difficult because your brain usually trusts its own reactions. You don’t usually listen to music you dislike on the assumption that you’ll grow to like it. You don’t befriend a person you dislike or join an activity you’re bad at on the assumption that something will change.
It’s natural to trust your current likes and dislikes when you think that will make you feel happy. But now you know that they’re based on accidents of experience rather than complete information. Your accidental ‘nerves’ cause the threatened feeling you get when you depart from the road you know. If you avoid the threatened feeling by sticking to the old roads you’ve traveled on, you miss out on a big world of potential happiness. You can learn to enjoy the challenge of embarking on a new road to feel good.
Make a Commitment to One Pathway at First
There are so many choices for how to feel happier. God gives us intricate wiring to help us feel better and we can build a lot of new pathways to our happy chemicals. But we only have a limited amount of time and energy. If we spread our time everywhere, a new road may not get built. Choose one project you want to start with. Commit to repeating it for forty-five days whether or not you feel like it. If you miss a day, start over with Day One.
Commitments to yourself can be difficult to enforce but will ultimately feel good. For example, I made the commitment to bring reusable bags with me when I buy food, but I kept forgetting them. So, I added the commitment to go back to my car and get them if I forgot. The next time I found myself at the supermarket without the bags, I thought “I’m too busy to go back to the car.” Then I realized that I will always be busy, and I am a powerless person if I can’t even honor a commitment to myself. I went back to the car to get the bags, and I never forgot them again because I didn’t want to waste time going back to my car. You will not want to waste time starting over with Day One. You will want to honor your commitments to yourself and thus enjoy a new happy habit.
No one else is going to stick up for your time and get the things done that you want to do, so it’s important that you keep your promises to yourself. Keeping commitments to yourself is the ultimate act of self-love. Staying true to your word shows that you value your own goals and desires. You are capable of upholding the promises you make to yourself.
When I start falling back into old habits and thought patterns, I think about whether that’s helping me to fulfill my purpose. Often, it’s not, so I encourage myself to focus on what will help me achieve my goals instead.
Question: What commitments do you want to keep to yourself?
Overall, I’ve learned that keeping commitments to yourself means getting your mindset right, repeating what works, and learning more about yourself so you can focus on what you need.
I encourage you to think of a goal or habit you’ve been wanting to master for a long time. Ask yourself why you haven’t been following through with it, and then make a commitment to go after what you want. After all, no one else is going to do it for you.
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