We all want to get rid of bad habits and learn new approaches so we can live happier, healthier, and more successful lives.
But it’s much easier said than done.
In fact, there’s a common mistake I frequently see people make that kills their results—even from the people closest to me.
Let’s say someone looks at their life, sees things they don’t like, and resolves to change them.
Yet the way they try to change their life is simply by “thinking” differently: By forcing themselves to “think” in new ways.
Basically, they’re just going to “try” to be different.
But that almost never works (unless there’s some major cataclysmic life change that comes with it).
What ends up happening is that they go around “thinking” they’ve changed—and telling everyone the same thing—but pretty much everything in their life is still the same and they’re stuck in denial. Why?
Simple:
You can’t THINK your way into becoming a new person.
Becoming a new person doesn’t come from saying, “Well, I was a pessimist before, so starting from today, I’m going to be an optimist!”
That’s a recipe for failure.
(It’ll only take a few days before you gradually creep back to your pessimistic tendencies.)
Here’s why:
First, it relies heavily on willpower. It’s you versus your habitual pattern, and it’s 100% your responsibility to “think” in new ways. Yet when you feel tired and stressed, you’re always going to fall back to your default programming.
Second, it’s unrealistic. It’s basically like spending every day trying to catch yourself when you think the “old” way and forcing yourself to think in a “new” way.
It’s impossible.
We have over 6000 thoughts per day.
And over 99.9% of our thinking is unconscious.
That, by the way, is NOT hyperbole.
Research suggests that about 99.99996% of our mental processes are controlled by our unconscious. The human brain absorbs about 11 million bits of information per second, yet we can only consciously process about 40 bits of information per second.
Thus, to get through all the complexities of daily life, your brain makes countless instantaneous decisions every second without you thinking.
As a result, your habitual pattern will win 9 times out of 9.
Think about it: You’ve thought a specific way for decades of your life and you’ve acted a specific way for decades of your life. Not only is it rooted in your conscious, but it’s rooted in your unconscious.
Yet people think that just because they read a quote, magically, everything in their life is going to change? It doesn’t work like that.
Change is very difficult.
Over the past decade, I’ve been fortunate enough to transform my life several times over. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my journey — and I still have a ways to go — but I’ve learned a few essential truths for success.
Here’s what you should do to transform your life:
Change Your Environment
If you want to “change your life,” the first step isn’t to roll up your sleeves and get to work; the first step is to change your environment.
In Willpower Doesn’t Work, Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D., explains it’s impossible to change yourself unless you change your environment because you and your environment are “two indivisible parts of the same whole.”
To become a new person, you need your surroundings to help you—your home, your city, your nutrition, your social circle, your information sources, your workplace, your entertainment, etc.
Be intentional with your environments. Don’t just accept what’s around you; make sure they pull you toward what you want to achieve.
People say they want to change their lives, yet they continue to hang out with the same friends, do the same things, go to the same places, and essentially live the same life.
But if everything is still the same, how can they actually change?
If you want to be healthier, surround yourself with a healthier environment (and avoid unhealthy environments). If you want to be more positive, surround yourself with positive people and consume positive information (and avoid negative people and information).
If you don’t do this step FIRST, any other strategy or effort you make will be so much harder because you’re still in an environment that is actively pulling against you.
You’re basically trying to swim upstream, which is a fool’s errand.
Create Constant Reminders
Here’s an analogy I use about changing yourself:
It’s like learning a completely new language while unlearning the language you’ve spoken for your entire life.
Basically, you thought you were speaking English, but the entire time, you were speaking Russian. So not only do you have to learn English from scratch, but you have to unlearn all the Russian you’ve ever learned.
You can’t just “think” your way into that.
And to put it in perspective, even if you had five hours of classes and three hours of tutoring every single day, it would STILL take months for you to become fluent.
It takes time for the human brain to adapt. It’s going to take time for those synapses to connect. (“Old habits die hard,” as the saying goes.)
And it’s similar to how changing your personality works too.
But the good news is, the more often you do it, the faster you’ll change. Just like with learning a language, the more immersive the experience, the faster everything will “click.”
One way is to surround yourself with things that remind you of your new, ideal way of being, thinking, and behaving. For example, things like pictures, signs, notes, trinkets, etc. (Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D., calls these “strategic reminders.”)
The point of them is to outsource your “new way of thinking” to something external so you don’t have to consciously worry or think about it anymore. It will do all of it for you.
For example, when I was in college and just starting my personal development journey, I unknowingly did something that, in hindsight, was a strategic reminder.
I typed a bunch of aphorisms and quotes onto a sheet of paper and taped it onto my closet so I could see it every single day, multiple times per day. Every time I passed by my closet, I would see those lessons and it would remind me of what I wanted to incorporate into my life as well as the feeling that inspired me to change in the first place.
And unbeknownst to me, every time I saw it, I was gradually reprogramming my mind to think in new ways—without using any willpower!
It didn’t matter how tired I was or if I was falling back to my old habits, that paper was there and doing what I needed it to do.
In fact, years ago, I listened to an interview with an entrepreneur, Noah Kagan, who talked about writing down your goals. But the secret sauce, he said, was to take that piece of paper and then tape it on your bathroom mirror so you could see it every morning.
That is a powerful strategic reminder: Now, every morning you wake up, you are changing how you think and reprogramming your subconscious to go for what you want.
Next, to further incorporate these reminders into your life, try a strategy I learned from a renowned psychologist, Dr. Marilyn J. Sorensen.
Back in 2020—with all the extra free time I had from being stuck at home during the pandemic—I started doing some self-esteem therapy she taught. She used a unique strategy to help reset your thinking patterns without using willpower:
- At the top of a notecard, write four thoughts from your previous (erroneous) way of thinking you would have from a specific scenario. ex. If you feel nervous with public speaking, you can write four thoughts that you feel during those moments (the thoughts that don’t serve you and that you want to eliminate).
- Below, on the same notecard, write four new thoughts based on actual facts, truth, and history that correct and replace each of those four old thoughts. (This is what you want to think in order to feel happier, more empowered, more successful, etc.)
- Write separate note cards for different situations. (ex. write cards for when your boss gives you criticism, when you get upset if your spouse forgets something, etc.)
- Read your cards five times a day.
- Do this for several weeks or months—until you feel better.
That is the “secret sauce.”
By doing this regularly throughout the day, you will gradually replace your previous thoughts patterns and retrain your mind.
What you are doing in this process is retraining your brain and your habit of continually telling yourself things that are not based on fact or truth or history, but instead, on fear and irrational thinking. Now you are telling yourself things that are true, things that can serve you well in creating a happier life.
—Dr. Marilyn J. Sorensen
The beauty of this is that you don’t need motivation, willpower, or any of that crap.
Instead, by having these cards and setting reminders to read them five times a day, you’ve created a system that will take you to where you want to go without having to stress, worry, remind yourself, struggle, etc.
She adds this note:
“Once we have cemented that particular belief in our mind, it is extremely difficult to change. For instance, imagine after having been taught in your early education that 1+1=2, that someone now tells you that what you learned was wrong and that, in fact, 1+1=3. Would you be able to even entertain the possibility that you had been wrong all these years? We can quickly say, “Of course not,” because we think that would be ridiculous.
Consider, then, that it is not that much different for the person with low self-esteem, who sees herself as lacking in some way, based on beliefs that were formed in childhood, beliefs that she believes as strongly as the equation above. To change her perspective of herself is similarly difficult to even consider, let alone to actually accomplish. Thus, the work of recovery from low self-esteem is a difficult and complex one and it will take time, so be patient on this journey.”
Again, don’t just “think” yourself into a new way of being. Create a system where it’s impossible to think in your old way.
I rarely see people give this kind of advice, but then again I rarely see people who actually (and regularly) change their lives for the better.
I know it might seem cumbersome in the beginning, but remember, it’s only for the short term. Spend 10 to 15 minutes every day (or more) reading your cards and it’ll add up. Then, a few months later, you won’t have to read them as often.
I used to carry my cards with me during the day and, if any situation triggered my old way of thinking, I would whip out my cards and reread them. It might sound weird, BUT IT WORKS.
Again, don’t swim upstream. Change the direction of the stream by adding these reminders and triggers into your life and everything will be much easier.
One Extra Highly Effective Tip To Help You
Remember: It’s not only how much you change, but it’s also how fast you change.
The faster you change, the better. If you really want to make a change in your personality or behaviors, don’t go gradually. Make it fast.
If you make it fast, you will be able to reap the rewards a lot quicker.
Whether that’s with your career, relationships, health, and more, the faster you can gain new skills, the faster you can grow.
Because ultimately the only true sign that you have changed as a person is if your results have changed.
Either you’re making more money, your relationships are happier, your health is better, you’ve lost weight, you have a new partner in your life, you changed careers or got a promotion, your business has grown, etc.
It’s very unambiguous.
Your life grows to the extent that you do.
But if your life is still roughly the same, to think you’ve changed is probably more wishful thinking than anything.
That’s why it’s so important to act now. Because you can reap those rewards faster and enjoy your life more.
I hope this article helps you in that journey.
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