Thursday, July 8TH, 2010

Welcome to Change Survival Tips

Welcome to my Change Survival tips. I'm hoping that whatever you're going through right now, personal or professional, this newsletter will offer support as well as practical tools for getting through it with minimum discomfort and maximum success! Don't hesitate to reach out and contact me for more help.

-MJ Ryan, mj@mj-ryan.com

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Top 10 Tips for Making Lasting Change

When I talked to folks who were masters of surviving change they didn’t ask for, they all had one thing in common: when life changed around them, they looked for a goal to strive for that they could be in control of: to lose 20 pounds, for instance, or run a half marathon, or become a ballroom dancer. Something that gave them a focus for their energy and talents that was not dependent on anyone else and that could give them a sense of satisfaction.

Such a strategy makes sense. It’s in the Serenity Prayer: peace of mind comes when we accept the things we can’t change and change the things we can. If this sounds like something you want to try, of course, you want to maximize the likelihood of success so that your sense of self esteem and control is increased, not decreased. That’s why I thought I’d share my top 10 tips for making lasting change this month. To help you take charge of a positive change in your life.

1. Make it Nonnegotiable

Promise yourself that you are absolutely going to do it. When you do it, where you do it, how you do it can, and most likely will, change according to circumstances. But that you will do it is not open for consideration. Call it a vow, a promise, a pledge, a commitment. Whatever you name it, making it choiceless is a tool for overcoming backsliding after your initial enthusiasm fades. You don’t negotiate with yourself about brushing your teeth. You just do it. I bet you usually honor your commitments to other people too. Treat yourself equally well. Make your resolution a nonnegotiable commitment in your life.

2. Make it Actionable

Is your goal concrete enough? Many of us fail because we haven’t turned it into something to actually do. Yesterday, a client said he was going to focus more on himself and his family and less on his job. “How are you going to put that into action?” I asked. There was silence on the other end of the phone. Here are some resolutions I’ve recently heard: to have more energy…to learn to relax…to learn to make decisions. There’s nothing wrong with these desires. But they must be translated into actions. Actions tell you HOW you’re going to do something—I’m going to go to bed earlier and exercise 30 minutes daily to have more energy; I’m going to spend ½ hour a day relaxing with my feet up on the couch; I’m going to make a decision about the vacation by Friday. To succeed you must know what actions you’re going to take. 

3. Come Up with Solutions for Your Usual Excuses

What is your usual litany of excuses and rationalizations? One way to think about this is to ask yourself what has gotten in your way in the past when you’ve tried to do this resolution or any other. Forgetting? No time? Losing interest? Not knowing how to begin? And what are the rationalizations you give yourself when you gave up in the past? It doesn’t matter? It’s not that bad? It’s too hard? Instead of just hoping it will be different this time, write down your typical excuses and rationalizations and create strategies in advance for dealing with them. That way you won’t get stopped in your tracks and lose forward momentum when they arise. And yes, they will! Because of the way our brains are hardwired, we have a strong tendency to repeat behavior over and over.

4. Use Procrastination to Your Advantage

Business coach Mike R. Jay claims that 60% of the population is “pressure prompted,” as it’s called on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It’s a preference, usually labeled as procrastination, to take in information for as long as possible before being forced into action by some external deadline. The other 40% of us are “early-starters,” who prefer to get the ball rolling and avoid pressure. If you fall into the pressure-prompted majority, find a deadline that will help you get into motion—a reunion, a vacation, a wedding, a performance. One would-be diet-and- exerciser finally got off the starting line when he got the lead in a local production of The Full Monty, which required him to parade around in a g-string in three month’s time. A woman finished her Ph.D. thesis that had been languishing for years when she got a job that required its completion. To work most effectively, the deadline must be real and come from the outside. Pressure-prompters tend to blow off self-created ones.

5. Schedule It In

Before Jan. 2004, I never exercised a day in my life. Since then, I have kept my resolution to exercise 30 minutes a day about 80 percent of the time. How did I do it? Put into my day planner and treated it as an appointment with a client. Otherwise it’s too easy to schedule all my time away with things I enjoy more (which is everything). Want to write every day? Block it out on your calendar. Want to start looking for a date on Match.com? Schedule it. Make a specific, time-bound appointment with yourself and you’ll be much more likely to do it.

Read the Remaining 5 Tips on My Blog >

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Want More Support?
Read my book This Year I Will…How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution or Make a Dream Come True.

Want Even More Support?
Contact me for a one-on-one thinking partnership over the phone: mj@mj-ryan.com

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Daphne Rose Kingma

Want more help with the emotional and spiritual challenges of change? Read my friend Daphne Rose Kingma's great book The 10 Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart.

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