Making Lasting Change

Right about now, folks begin to realize that their New Year’s resolutions are not taking hold or start to abandon them. Making lasting change is hard and requires us to be very uncomfortable for a very long time. For change to be lasting, we need to be properly prepared to make change and the suffering that comes with changing. How much suffering change will cause is down to how deeply attached we are to the behaviors we are trying to change. Our behaviors represent a state of mind and understanding of who we are and how we function. For example, if we pledge to keep our house clean, that requires changing how and where we eat, get dressed and undressed, as well our assessing our behavior before, after, and during grooming. Changing anything about the way we move through the world requires understanding each step in the process.

Once we understand what goes into a behavior and why we move the way we do, we can make smaller, more manageable steps to achieve large change. Most of us get a frustration pot that acts as a driver for change. We need to look at and deconstruct why we are frustrated and how we got here. Then look at one small thing that we can realistically change. One small barrier to larger change. Using the house cleaning example, it generally requires cleaning an already messy house. A way to make this bite-size is to pick one small area and then clean and try to keep it clean for 7 consecutive days while observing behaviors that hinder this.

When we start small, we can observe and assess our internal process and get a better understanding of the mechanism and thought process that create our current state of being. Deconstructing why we do the things we do and how to move just a little bit differently will reduce the amount of suffering required for change. This process also allows us to find success in a small way that we can apply to larger scale change. This process will provide an opportunity to refine the goal so that it is optimized and customized to us. When changes are too sweeping or general, we trend to lose sight of how it will improve our overall state of being once achieved. If it doesn’t benefit us, why would we go through the suffering necessary to change? Being honest with ourselves about our values and the benefits of any change improves our ability to endure the discomfort of change.