Change

Hey - It’s Michael.

Been pretty proud of what I built for myself these days. Enjoy the newsletter!

You want this, you want that. You work and work and struggle. Or you can’t get to work and feel stuck. Whatever the reason - in order to reach your goals - it usually involves change.

So you force change. You try this framework and that skill. Read this book, watch that video - yet you’re stuck in old behaviors. It’s emotionally taxing. And the more you do the worse it gets.

It’s like driving with your brakes on. Luckily, there’s a better way.

In order to change effectively, it’s helpful to adopt a few new mindsets:

In essence, goals are a gap of who you are and what you can do to who you’d like to be, how you want to behave and what you have.

So inherently they imply a lack of some sort. This lack usually creates pain which in turn fuels motivation for change, since all humans seek to avoid pain and increase pleasure.

Another big factor for change is identity. Whatever you believe you are, is usually the biggest influence on how you behave.

In order to change as effortless & graceful as possible and thereby reach your goals, I propose the following framework:

Observe → Adapt Identity → Clarify Old & New Habits / Design Environment / Connect positive emotions & cost

Change begins with understanding. If you observe and see reality for what it is, change usually happens on its own.

You can smoke and intellectually know that it’s bad for your health, but the moment you get a cancer diagnosis and you realize just how bad it is, your body still might crave the cigarettes but you’ll stop smoking immediately. Change happened on its own. You can speed up this process by careful observation.

Observe the cues of your behaviors, the emotions that go along with it. Observe the environment, your thoughts and who you’re with. Observe the cost of what you do. Just observe.

If you want to design change, the most effective way is adapting your identity. If you decide to be a top athlete and live like one, it’ll be much easier to stop smoking.

Clarify the behavior / thing it exactly is that you want to change and understand all the costs & negative emotions that come along with it. (In our example, all the terrible ways you are going to feel after smoking a pack of cigarettes, what it does to your finances,..)

Be clear on what you want to replace the behavior / thing with - and connect all the positive emotions that come along with it. (Like how you feel after doing exercise for example).

Lastly, design the right physical & social environment for change. If all of your friends smoke and you have a cupboard full of cigarettes and by now you know it’s going to kill you - it’s probably time to make friends that support your new behaviors and dump the cigarette stash to reduce external cues.

Over time, the urges that drove the old behavior will get weaker and weaker. And just like that you’re changing the neurological pathways in your brain. And change happens.

“Things do not change; we change.” - Henry David Thoreau

How would the person behave, that is, does & has all that I want? How do I behave currently?

See you next week - Michael