Tag Archives: Mindsets for Success

Set Yourself Up For Success in Adopting New Habits

Have you ever felt exhausted by trying to change a habit? Have you eventually found yourself giving in, to your old pattern of behavior, to whatever is easier? If so, you’re definitely not alone. When we try to change habits, by constantly reminding ourselves to do something in a new and different way, we expend energy to pay close attention to what we are doing. The energy used by focusing on each of the decisions that we are making — about not reaching for a Diet Coke or grabbing a handful of Peanut M&M’s as you walk through your office’s lounge or kitchen — wears us down. And once we’re worn down, we’ll revert to the tried and true, the comfortable behaviors.

So, how can you support yourself to successfully change your habits? Make whatever changes you can to your environment to support the new habits you are trying to instill. Here are a few examples…

Want to be less distracted at work?

  • Set your email so it only downloads onto your computer when you manually prompt it to. Set specific times during the day when you will check your email. Other than those times, keep your email program closed.
  • Leave your Blackberry at your desk when you head into a meeting.
  • Change the settings for your text messages, so that there is no sound alert when you receive a text.

Want to start eating more healthy food?

  • Get your office manager to store any sugary snacks inside closed cupboards rather than out in the open in the office kitchen. Brian Wansink, the head of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, and the author of Mindless Eating has found that each time we are confronted by a decision of whether or not to eat something, it wears down our will.
  • Designate one refrigerator for bottled water only, and keep all the sugary and diet drinks in another and only open the refrigerator with the bottled water. Better yet, bring a glass to work and just refill it with water every time you feel thirsty. Speaking of thirst, you have probably heard people say that it’s good to drink 8 glasses of water per day. The better rule of thumb is to drink half your bodyweight in ounces per day (e.g. a 180lb person should drink 90oz of water per day). Water is absorbed into the body by the colon, and it is best absorbed if it is introduced slowly throughout the day. Drink 4oz of water every half hour instead of chugging a full glass of water, and you’ll increase your water absorption and be better hydrated.
  • Get rid of any white sugar, white flour, or processed foods you have in your pantry at home and just stop buying them. If you don’t have them in your home, you won’t have to work to avoid the temptation of eating them!

Want to eat less?

  • Get smaller plates. Or just use the salad plates you have instead of the dinner plates. Use teaspoons instead of soup spoons. Research studies have shown that “the bigger the plate is, the more people serve” – as much as 28% more!
  • When you are eating a snack food, take as much as you want to eat out of the container and put it into a serving bowl. Put the rest of the snack food back in the cupboard before you begin eating.

For whatever habit you want to create, think about how you can change your environment to support the new habit. By doing that, you’ll find that the new behavior will become a habit more quickly and easily.

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Perhaps What You Need Is a Shift in Attitude

Think back to the last time you were somewhere you didn’t want to be — getting a speeding ticket, in the checkout line that seems to be moving the slowest at the store, at the airport after having just learned that your flight has been cancelled or delayed, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway, wide awake at 3 in the morning when you desperately need a good night’s sleep, etc. Do you recall what went on in your mind? My guess is that you were thinking thoughts like, “I don’t have time for this,” ”I’m going to miss my meeting now,” “I don’t want to be here,” “My insurance rates are going to go up,” “This isn’t fair!” “Why can’t I be anywhere else but here right now?” etc.

When you’re busy thinking those thoughts, it’s hard to feel happy. It’s as though you’re somehow fighting reality. And fighting reality never leads to pleasant experiences or peace or even joy. Before you start thinking that the best course of action is to try to change your circumstances, consider this:

The way you interpret what happens in any moment
greatly impacts your experience of that moment.

What does that mean? It means that the things you choose to focus on and the stories you tell yourself about anything can drastically affect whether you are happy, content, inspired and at peace in any moment, or bored, frustrated, annoyed, angry, or drained instead. You can label any experience as difficult or easy, as a problem or an opportunity or challenge.

Think of it in this way: the filter that you wear as you walk through life influences how pleasant or unpleasant your day-to-day life is. The great thing is that we can all change the filters we wear. Changing the filters, though, takes practice. Here’s a practice that I  use every time I realize that I’m feeling uneasy. Ask yourself:

What about this situation is completely perfect?

If you can find even the smallest gift in whatever is happening in this moment, the intensity of your reaction to the situation start to soften. You will find yourself more at ease.

You may not be able to change the external circumstances, but you can certainly change how you respond to them. And that begins with changing your attitude. Victor Frankl wrote of this so eloquently in his book Man’s Search For Meaning when he described his experience as a prisoner in concentration camps during World War II. He writes,

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

In every moment of every day, there is what happens and then there’s what you choose to do with it. What kind of day would you like to choose for yourself today? Can you find the perfection in what is?

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The Four Agreements

It was years ago when I first read the “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. At the time, I took everything that other people said personally. I cared a lot about what others thought of me and how they responded to me. I looked to others to help me feel okay about who I am. I compared myself to others, and more importantly my own ideas of what I thought should be true about me and my life.

“The Four Agreements” helped me begin to question all the beliefs that had been influencing me and limiting what I viewed as possible.

As Don Miguel Ruiz says, “We need a great deal of courage to challenge our own beliefs. Because even if we know we didn’t choose all these beliefs, it is also true that we agreed to all of them. The agreement is so strong that even if we understand the concept of it not being true, we feel the blame, the guilt, and the shame that occur if we go against these rules.”

I had ideas that had been instilled in me by my parents, ideas I had learned in school, and from people I interacted with throughout my life. I am smart and competent and considered myself able to analyze and discern, and yet when I stopped to question my beliefs, I realized that some of them weren’t contributing to my happiness with myself and with my life.

“If we can see it is our agreements which rule our life, and we don’t like the dream of our life, we need to change our agreements.”

Ruiz suggests that we consider adopting four agreements that will help us break the grip of agreements we have made that are not serving us. These agreements are:

  1. BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD — Don’t judge or blame yourself or others. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
  2. DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY — Everyone has their own filters, their own beliefs and agreements. The way they interpret and respond to everything around them is based on the way they see the world. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
  3. DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS – Instead of assuming you know what anyone intended or feels or means, be curious and ask questions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
  4. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST — Keep in mind that your best changes from moment to moment. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are tired as opposed to well rested. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

    Ruiz wrote a follow-on book called The Fifth Agreement, in which he added the following agreement to the 4 listed above:

    • BE SKEPTICAL, BUT LEARN TO LISTEN — Don’t believe yourself or anybody else. Use the power of doubt to question everything you hear: Is it really the truth? Listen to the intent behind the words, and you will understand the real message.

    Don’t take Ruiz’ (or my) word for it. Try it for yourself, and see what happens if you spend the next week living these agreements!

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