We are already acting in ways that determine our future. However, we are often not aware of what we are doing. All of our actions are behaviors. We have used those behaviors to form habits. Sometimes we have created really great habits that will propel our lives forward. Other times we have unintentionally created habits that will keep us stuck and drain our momentum. Let’s look at why behavior change is important for personal growth.

Behavior and it’s Effects

If it is something we are doing, it is a behavior.

Sometimes our learned behaviors don’t serve us in the way we would like.

Think about how much of our financial situation is based on our behavior. Consider how much of our struggle with reaching a healthy weight or growing in our spirituality is based on our behavior. Even our success or failure in a particular job or relationship is based on our behavior.

Behavior Change Important for Personal Growth

In my journey to set goals that I will actually keep, I am learning that a lot of my success or failure in meeting goals are affected by my behavior. What am I doing to make it more likely that I meet the goals I set? I am learning to look critically at my actions and seek ways to improve my behaviors.

Tips for Taking a Step to Change Your Behavior

These tips might seem incredibly basic, but sometimes I think we make things too complicated.

2 Aspects of Behavior Change:

1. All the change shouldn’t happen at once.

If one habit takes 66, or more, days to become ingrained we should limit the changes we  focus on.

2. Give yourself time to understand the why.

When you are setting a behavior goal/trying to build a new habit, it’s important to slow down and understand the why.

Now, let’s unpack these aspects.

Change Takes Time

Changing behavior takes time. It is a fast world we live in, but if you want to change your behavior or build new habits give yourself time.

If you want to build a new habit, the average number of days that it takes to build a new habit is 66 days. It might take less than 66 days, but it also might take more than 66 days (based on a research article by Dr. Phillippa Lally on habit formation).

If we take on too many behaviors at once we are more likely to fall off the behavior-change-wagon.

Understand The Why

The last time I set a health goal and did not take the time to understand why the changes were important, I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to take the fast track. I made a goal to establish the new habits without a deeper understanding of why my habit changes would be important.

Instead of going somewhere and accomplishing my health goal, I fell off the behavior-change-wagon…after a day or two. I did not take time to understand the why.

Summary

In Conclusion, our habits can either move us forward or keep us stuck. To continue to grow we need to look at our behaviors and their effects. If we are trying to change our behaviors we need to remember 2 things. 1) Take it slow. 2) Understand why the change is important.

If you’re focused on behavior change and personal growth give me an “I’m in” in the comments below.

Behavior Challenge: Think of a goal that you have or a goal that you want to set. Dig deep into why this goal is important to you. If you have already identified a “why” for your goal, go back and revisit your “why” to help you keep up your motivation.

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Read more on Habit Formation:

How Habits are Formed | Beginners Guide

3 Reasons to Change Your Bad Habit

We often use positive or negative outcomes to judge the quality of our decisions. If I earned a degree that I am “not using” I must have made a bad decision. If I use my degree daily I must have made a good decision. Is this focus on the end result the best way to look at the classification of our decisions as good or bad? Perhaps you use your degree daily, but you don’t like your job. Was it still a good decision?

I listened to a podcast this week that discussed the typical way we measure our decisions. This podcast was a great follow up to my previous post on developing a personal reflection habit.

When we are reflecting on our beliefs or our decisions it can be easy to do what Annie Duke mentioned in her interview on the Science of Success podcast. She called it resulting.

What is resulting?

Resulting is when we give the decision that ends in something positive the label of a good decision. It is when we give the decision that ends in something negative the label of a bad decision. Annie Duke says that when we do this, we are providing an emotional reaction to the result rather than actually evaluating the result.

Therefore, when we use the outcome, or result, of the decision to judge the quality of our decisions we aren’t getting the complete picture. An important idea presented in the podcast is to hold your emotional reaction to the outcome, or result, of a decision at a distance.

With the emotional reaction at a distance you can classify the quality of your decision based on evaluation.

As someone that is trying to form a more intentional and forward moving life, I am finding that my past decisions sometimes sneak back into view and try to distract me from where I am going. I sometimes give in to the idea that, based on my current results (not being where I “should” be or want to be) that I must have made all the wrong decisions.

A less emotional response would be for me to consider these decisions from all the angles in which I originally made the decision and then evaluate them – keeping in mind any data that might be relevant to the evaluation of the experience.

It sounds complex, but let’s image getting our emotional responses under control. Think about how different things would be if we viewed our decisions with a more accurate understanding.

I’m considering using this strategy as I decide what type of career focused training or course I should take as a next step. What decisions would you like to rethink or make using this evaluation approach to judging the quality of your decisions?

Behavior Challenge: Pick a decision that would benefit from putting distance between your emotions and the result. Listen to the podcast for more on how Annie Duke suggests you focus your evaluation.

If you enjoyed this post or want to share about a decision you want to evaluate, comment on this post and let me know!

With all the distractions that we face on a daily basis we need to be intentional about personal reflection. Are we pursuing things because we want to pursue them or because we think that we should? How can we know ourselves on the deep level needed for personal growth, career clarity, and life fulfillment if we are constantly filling our time with television, social media, and various tasks? Do we decide on our next steps by considering who we are or do we follow what is typical behavior?

We need to take time to reflect. We need to stop and think.

When I don’t know what the next step is in one area of my life, it’s time to stop and think. I am noticing that this often means that I have let other things take my focus and attention or that my attention is being swayed by a limiting belief.

My lack of clarity becomes the cue for personal reflection.

I am working to develop a personal reflection habit to regularly engage those areas that I need more clarity in. Below are 3 tips from my experience so far. I wanted to share these tips in hopes that we can all become more intentional with our personal reflection.

Tips for Intentional Reflection

1.  Find a quiet area-you want to create the space for your mind to uncover the beliefs that aren’t from you or that are held together by limiting beliefs.

2. Listen with grace-you are a work in progress and being too hard on yourself for not catching this sooner will hinder your progress.

3. Do it in steps-you took in these ideas over time and recovering your hold on the truth can take some time as well.

I hope these 3 tips for intentional reflection will get you started with developing your personal reflection  habit.

Here’s to gaining clarity about our behavior.

Here’s to gaining clarity for next steps.

Questions: Is there an area in your life that would benefit from intentional reflection? Are there beliefs that were picked up from the world around you that aren’t truly how you want to act or believe?

Behavior Challenge: Find some quiet this week and give yourself time to think and reflect on one of your current struggles. See if you can identify one reason you are struggling in this area. Go deep into the reflection. The surface answer is a good start, but the challenge is to dig into the layers below the surface.

Comment on this post if you are ready to try some personal reflection.

Have you ever caught yourself saying or thinking something negative towards yourself?

I’m not good at ___.

I’m too old/young for ___.

I never know what to do.

Every time we think or speak such a statement we set limits on ourselves.

We create barriers made of our negative and limiting thoughts.

A limiting belief is a belief that we hold about ourselves, others, or the world that creates a barrier between our desire to change and our ability to act on that change.

If your go-to thought is rooted in negativity, doubt, or fear you will end up stuck. Those thoughts become deep rooted and automatic. They are barriers to progress and success.

This is why we should care. Negative thoughts and limiting thoughts are barriers that keep us from moving forward and doing great things!

Knock down the barriers with positive and empowering thoughts.

The best part about discovering your limiting beliefs is realizing that you can change how your mind views them. They don’t have to stay negative thoughts that hold you back. You can reframe them and use them as motivation.

I’m not good at ___.  —->  I am learning ___.

I’m too old/young for ___. —->  I am experienced/I have new insights and I can add value.

I never know what to do. —-> I might sometimes feel uncertain, but I have done ___ in the past, and I can do ___ now.

These are just a few examples of how this process can go. Try it out!

They don’t call it a limiting belief for nothing.

I’m not a master at focusing on the positive thoughts over the limiting beliefs, but I can tell when I am remembering the positive thoughts and when I am focused on a limiting belief.

Just the other day I was talking to a friend and out popped a limiting belief. That limiting belief flew out of my mouth without hesitation. As soon as I heard my friend’s response, I knew I had spoken a limiting belief. I quickly rephrased my statement.

We all give in to our negative thoughts. The first step to overcoming those limiting beliefs is to notice when we are leaning on a limiting belief. When we are letting limiting beliefs keep us from progress.

It can be a real struggle to overcome those ingrained negative beliefs. Maybe it will be easy for some of you. If you’re like me, however, I believed all those negative thoughts for so long that recalling them became a force of habit-a habit that I needed to break.

Breaking bad habits isn’t easy, but there comes a time when it must be done.

Are you with me?

Questions: What makes a thought a limiting belief? Can you identify your top 3 limiting beliefs?

Behavior Challenge: When you catch yourself speaking or thinking a limiting belief, reframe it right then and there. Share your story in the comments by clicking the post title or here.

Please comment with any thoughts or questions related to this post.

Resources: I first heard about limiting beliefs and liberating truths from Michael Hyatt, the former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and now online leadership mentor. He speaks about limiting beliefs and liberating truths in his online goal setting course Your Best Year Ever.

For an online resource directly related to limiting beliefs you can go here.