Spring is here–it is a natural time to take inventory of the goals we may have set at the start of the year and how we have so far progressed. As humans, we yearn to progress and strive to improve ourselves and the world around us. Unfortunately, the way we often approach goals sets us up to fail; we start with great intentions but then fall short and return to old habits.
How, then, do we truly change, not for a week or a month, but for the long haul? First, we need to have an accurate understanding of motivation and willpower and the role they play in the change process.
Motivation is often viewed as the fuel for change, the impetus that gets us out of our comfort zone to act. While it may do this at times, motivation is fickle. It is a feeling and a fleeting one at that. If we wait for motivation, we won’t take the action needed for real change. Rather than pushing us to action, motivation reinforces action we’re already taking, telling us that we’re on the right track.
If motivation isn’t the fuel, then what is? Some might say willpower. Like motivation, however, this has long been misunderstood. We start each day with a certain amount of willpower: the more we use it, the less we have, becoming more susceptible to our instincts, impulses and habits. This is why many of our slip-ups and bad habits happen later in the day.
Rather than motivation or willpower, effective change needs to begin with a clear, firm decision made from a place of conviction. We must want to change for us and not for anyone else. Once we have a personal conviction to change, we must define the action we will take. If the goal is to get in shape, we need to define a specific action that we will take to get there. What’s more, that action should be simple, realistic and sustainable. The ultimate goal, and the key to sustainable change, is action that can be built into our daily routine so that over time, it becomes a habit.
Using the above example of getting in shape, the sustainable change may be waking up every day 15 minutes earlier to do push-ups or sit ups before work. At first it may feel challenging to build a new routine into an old daily schedule, but it will become easier by the day. Once it has truly become a habit, it will be automatic. Then, you can build upon it by exercising for 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes. The new habit becomes easier by building on top of the old one.
Decisions, motivation and willpower remain crucial factors in this process. We may still feel the urge to choose the old way, and that’s okay. We can allow that feeling to exist without letting it make our decisions for us. We can then recall the emotions we felt when we decided to make the change and choose to continue our daily habits.
Where goals fail is that they focus on lofty, abstract objectives that often have an endpoint. Real change is a lifestyle change. If we want to be different, we need to behave differently every day. Small changes in our decisions will compound over time, and soon, we will actually crave our better habits. We will become the type of people we choose to be.
Change is possible, and it is built brick by brick, day by day.
Nick Norman, LICSW, is a clinical social worker and the Business Relationship Manager at Mindful Therapy Group, a collaborative network of licensed, independent mental health clinicians serving Washington, Oregon and Arizona.