How to Change

Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again.

Biikram Choudhury

In many of my earlier posts I have written about change, changing our behaviour, working towards eliminating our negative behaviours and making positive changes in our life.

The first step involves learning, it is important that we educate ourselves on the things that will be helpful in our pursuits.  The other steps in our ‘change’ are conviction, determination, action and effort. The conviction for change then develops into determination; next, one transforms determination into action- a strong determination to change enables us to make a great effort to implement the actual changes. This final effort is vital.

No matter what behaviour we are seeking to change, no matter what goal we are directing our efforts towards; we need to start with a strong desire or wish to do it. We need to generate great enthusiasm, a sense of urgency is vital…I must use every precious moment!

To bring genuine inner transformation and change is a gradual process; it takes time to develop new habits. It takes determination, effort. When we embark on the path of change, it is important to set realistic expectations. If our expectations are too high, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. If they are too low, it extinguishes our willingness to challenge our limitations and achieve our true potential.

If we have excessive expectations without a proper bases, then that usually leads to problems. However, without expectations and hope, without aspirations, we will make no progress. So hope is vital.

On the path to change we need to generate determination and enthusiasm. Psychologist Benjamin Bloom looked at the lives of some of America’s most accomplished artists, athletes and scientists. He found that drive and determination, not great talent, lead to their success.

‘Effort’ is the final thing to bring about the change we want; Making a sustained effort to change our behaviour is both necessary to over coming bad habits, as well as changing our underlying attitudes and feelings.  Like a simple act of regularly helping others, even if we don’t feel particularly caring, we may discover we gradually develop genuine feeling of compassion.

Scientific evidence shows that we can change the function of our brain by cultivating new thoughts, so we can certainly train the mind…….