From Chance to Change

Coming Back to Center

Beginning the new year is always a process for me of coming back into alignment. Rather than feeling like I need to have all my new goals in place by January first, I give myself time to review the previous year and consider what adjustments I want to make. It feels more like the continuation of my life journey. More evolution than resolution. I come up with a theme or phrase to guide me for the new year. I take until the middle of the month to consider new goals. Some I start right after that, and others feel like seeds that still need to lie dormant a bit longer. These I might nurture until spring, which actually feels like the new year to me, and then I bring them to life.

How Do Habits Form?

By the time we are 35, ninety to ninety-five percent of who we are sits in a subconscious memory system. Like an iceberg, most of it lies beneath the surface. The other five to ten percent is above water, in our awareness. Pretty much everything we experience when we are young children goes straight into that subconscious memory system. No filter. This is how children can learn so much so fast. They are literally like a sponge. This issue is that some of the stuff that makes it into the iceberg isn't always in our best interest (like attitudes about our worth, money, work and play, etc...). Many of these beliefs and attitudes are what learning expert Jim Kwik calls LIE's: Limiting Ideas Entertained. Our job is to unearth these beliefs and attitudes and bring them into our consciousness. The first step in change is awareness. 

Each of our experiences forms a neural network in our brain, and what fires together, wires together. The more a behavior is repeated, the more hard-wired it becomes. The good news is that the concept of neuroplasticity says that these patterns can be changed. The more you repeat a new behavior, new neural networks are formed around that behavior, and the old, less used networks are pruned away. You are literally creating a new mind! So how can we move from leaving things to chance to creating change?

The Art of Change

According to Dr. Joe Dispenza, once you become aware of the beliefs and attitudes that are attached to your subconscious programs, the next steps in the art of change are thinking, doing, and becoming. You identify the old thoughts that are attached to the old behavior and decide which thoughts you want to replace them with. Then you identify the new behaviors you want to implement and put them into practice. (More on techniques for changing behavior in a minute.) Finally, you become your new self by experiencing the feeling of the new behavior as you do it. So if exercising more is your goal, what will you feel when you have  established a new routine? Confidence? Energy? Strength? Practice feeling this when you work out. You are giving your body a sample of your future as if it's already happened. 

The Banana Principle

In his book, The Happiness Advantage, author Shown Achor describes a study where a bowl of bananas and oranges was placed in the break room of an office. The bananas were always eaten first because the oranges took about 20 seconds longer to peel. People tend to take the path of least resistance. To foster a new habit, remove 20 seconds of resistance. Examples: To start going for a run in the morning, put your jogging clothes and shoes next to your bed the night before. To drink more water, fill your water bottle the night before and place it next to the door so you can grab it on your way out. To practice guitar more, place your guitar stand in the middle a room where you frequently have to walk by it. You will be more likely to pick it up and play. 

To help stop an old habit, add 20 seconds of resistance. If you want to watch less tv, take the batteries out of the remote and put a good book on the couch. You get the idea. You are interrupting "your regularly scheduled programming." When your new habit is established, you can phase out these behaviors because your new behavior has become your new normal, and you have created new neural networks around it in your brain. The new behavior is now the path of least resistance.

The Zorro Circle

In The Legend of Zorro, Don Diego, Zorro's mentor, sees that the young hero is undisciplined. He draws a circle in the dirt and tells his apprentice that he must learn to fight within it and master it. Then he can expand the circle and take on bigger challenges. The valuable lesson here is to set small, manageable goals. The poet, David Whyte, tells us to "start close in." Not with the second or third step, but with the first. When you decide on a change you want to make, write a list of all the things you do and don't have control over in that situation. Then focus on the things you can control. Pick one small action you can quickly accomplish. Go for the low-hanging fruit for the quick win. Then you can expand your circle a bit more and try the next right thing. One step at a time, your circle expands. New habits form.

The Domino Effect

So how do you know where to start? Think of your choices like a set of standing dominoes. What is the one domino you could knock over that would cause the most other dominoes to fall? For instance, if you focused on improving your health, what effect would this have on other areas of your life? If you decided to live each day with more gratitude, what else might happen as a result? Three things to keep in mind when choosing your first domino: You have to want it. It should align with your innate abilities so that it's not too difficult to begin. It should be something you can start now. Motivation comes from taking action. 

Moving Forward

So learn to identify those LIE's (Limiting Ideas Entertained) when deciding what you want to change and use the process of thinking, doing and becoming. Apply what you have learned here about the Banana Principle, the Zorro Circle, and the Domino Effect to get you started. Don't forget to add the superpower of feeling to what you are doing to give your body a sample of your future. Go from leaving things to chance to creating change. Wishing you a beautiful and blessed 2023!