Changing Rituals Creates Reality
The battles on. New Year motivation's over. Now, all that's left is willpower... or is it? Your New Year's resolutions are doomed if willpower's the driving force. It's short-lived. There's no way willpower can get you through each and every day. It simply fizzles out or it's zapped by other demands. So, you're going to need something stronger to keep you inline with your goals.
A lot of the time, our desired changes don't happen because of the circumstances we're going through today. Generally speaking, it's safer. The unknown is scary. It creates fear. And keeps us living with the things we'd like to change. We end up living in hope. We hope the future will change for us and grasp at those possibilities. Therefore, the pain we're experiencing right now can be alleviated with examples of others succeeding that we attach to our futures. But when challenged, people often answer with questions like...
...'Why doesn't everyone get cancer from smoking?' and 'If that's so bad for us, why did my grandad live until 95 eating pie and mash?'
In reality, we can always find examples to back up our actions. But what are the chances you'll end up living the same way? It's difficult to answer. Nobody really knows what the future will bring so they can just make it up.
Another way we get stuck in our current cycle is by reminiscing about the past. We remember the good times and hold onto them with the hope they'll return. Our memories provide enough comfort so we stay living with the status quo.
All the same, to make a change you need leverage
Habits are renowned to be difficult to quash. But patterns can be changed with the right incentive. Maybe that incentive comes from your family... your desire to live well for your children or to have children. Or perhaps your motivation stems from your personal growth... a desire for self-improvement. Whatever it is, you can use it to force a change.
However, a big problem is people say what they want but don't have a strong enough reason. It's not very exciting or compelling to get them through tough times and get that goal when they're challenged... when they're starving hungry on a diet or when they should exercise but struggle for time and stressed. So they give up because they don't have positive reasons to pull them through.
You need strong enough reasons why you'll follow through along with a vision.
Make sure it's a compelling vision. It has to be enough to pull you. It can't be something you use to push through because that requires willpower. It has to pull. Something so exciting, so attractive, so desirable that it energises your bounce out of bed. It puts you in an inspiring environment. It takes you to another level of intensity. Similar to the feeling of going to a concert or going on holiday.
To follow through, it comes down to emotional intensity in the right environment with a compelling vision. Being in a sorry state and dragging your heals isn't going to cut it. You'll need something to pull you out of that state. If you have compelling reasons pulling you then when times get tough you'll make it through. Even if you slip up, you'll get it together and get right back on track.
Surround yourself with pain
Because the present pain isn't enough if the past or the future is bright. If they produce warm feelings, happy sensations, then there's a chance you'll grasp at those for safety. Instead, focus on the pain. The reduced pleasure pain brings. And by making a change, you'll reduce pain and increase your pleasure. This way, you'll be encouraged to change. You'll want to follow through with your goal because you want to change.
This is possibly the strongest way to create change. It's dependent on your gut feeling. The power of pain and pleasure moves you. So, what you link pain and pleasure to causes a gut feeling and that strong feeling will drive you to do or not do something. It's not about willpower. It's emotional.
Take for example how people generate powerful responses to things. Or even develop phobias. It might have been a bad experience linked to something. A saddening event occurred while on a specific alcoholic drink. Now, the smell and the taste of that drink causes a gut response and brings memories flooding back. They simply cannot stand it anymore.
The associations we create are powerful. But sometimes we link pain to things we shouldn't. The connection can stop us from exercising or eating healthily. This relationship with pain will control your life if you let it. Preferably, you have to evaluate your links to pleasure and pain. If you're trying to get fit then you might have to reject any negative feelings you get before. Instead, focus on the positive stimulation exercising brings and the inevitable pain of not exercising.
If you're trying to eat healthily or lose weight, replace the pleasure of eating the wrong foods to the pain. Then you've caused a neuro-associative change. No willpower needed. Just past, present, and future pain and pleasure causing gut feelings. If you can link the pain to the past, present, and future, you'll change in a heartbeat.
Consequently, you'll begin to create a ritual. A new healthful habit. Admittedly, it takes one more step...
Daily focus
Have you ever wanted something so much you couldn't stop thinking about it? Maybe it was a car, a job, to move somewhere. Whatever it was, you were obsessed. You wanted to make it happen. There wasn't a plan but you thought about it so often that opportunities leading to that something opened up. Things just fell into place.
Because you were so focused, you were able to see the situations and opportunities to get what you wanted.
It seems like a mystical phenomenon. It isn't. Another way we experience this is when we buy something. Perhaps a car or clothes and all of a sudden you're seeing that item everywhere. It's not like it wasn't there before, but now you're noticing it without trying to. It's because whatever you focus on, you will find. In reality, you cannot see everything so your brain fills in the gaps and highlights the things that matter.
It happens because part of our brain is wired for regulating what we notice in the world. The reticular activating system (RAS), is responsible for regulating wakefulness and sleep-wake transitions. Because your brain realises something is part of your world and important to you, it will show it to you. Therefore, when you have a clear goal and reasons why and focus on them every day, your brain is activated in this way to seek out what you desire.
When you follow this action for change, you'll feel it, experience it, and raise your standards. You'll turn "I should" into "I do". You'll make it part of you and anything less is not good enough. Not acceptable. And when you do that, you'll find a way.
Leverage lifts standards supporting change
In view of our ability to change, most people base their life on a set of standards and beliefs they created years ago. Though you don't have to stick with them. Yes, it's easier to keep your current values. Although, ask yourself, are they making you happy? If they're not, you'll end up in conflict because there's a force within us demanding consistency. With an idea of knowing who you are and knowing how to act, therefore, being true to yourself. Many of these traits begin to develop throughout our childhood. We borrow characteristics from our parents and those around us so we fit in. Eventually, they become us even if they are not in our best interest.
Now that you see people can change and the way to do it, you don't have to live with the values you've picked up along the way. You can raise your standards and get results.
Although, you don't get a result without some kind of ritual... To lose weight permanently, you have to go on a diet permanently change your lifestyle. To get an amazing body you have to exercise consistently. The people that do this are in the same boat as us. They simply make it a must to workout four or five times a week or limit junk food and choose to eat fruit and vegetables instead. The people that get results have daily routines.
I'm not saying you have to exercise like they do or eat the way they do, it's just, whatever you want has to change to a must because "wants" are rarely reached. Standards are.
Overall, rituals define us - so take the time to focus and condition your mind and body to your goal. If you want to get fit, then you'll need a ritual to get you there. If you want to lose weight, then there's another ritual to accomplish that goal. Make your goal compelling. Find your reasons why. Take advantage of linking pleasure and pain. And focus every day. Only then will this become a ritual. Then permanent change will happen.