Well maybe you will...
As the new year gets rolling there are many among us who want to turn a new page in certain areas of our lives. Maybe we finally want to make this diet work. Or we want to stop smoking. Or we want to exercise more. Or or or...the list usually contains various habits we wish we didn't have.
After a few weeks, maybe a few months, those good intentions fall flat and we are back to the same old same old. Why does this happen? Why we can't just make it work because of our good intention. After all, I'm trying to improve myself right?
Well the problem is that our brains like routines and conformity to well known modes of being and thinking. The brain is an amazingly efficient machine. Once it learns something it stores it in our memory chips and from thereon out, once we do something, that chip automatically fires and we are off and running.
When we get into our cars, we don't have to relearn where the key goes, how to work the pedals and windshield wipers and so forth. We "just know" how those things work. It's automatic because the brain is just activating what it already knows.
Habits are the same way. And attitudes and beliefs. We "just have them" because that's just the way "things are."
That means in order to change something we have to reprogram ourselves so to speak. But this is hard to do. Just because we have an insight doesn't mean the light switch goes on and everything changes. It is hard work because when we no longer do a certain habit or exercise some self discipline, the brain goes "what's going on here? This is not the way things should go. This is the way things should go." And off we go again into the same old habit.
What we are doing, to change a habit or lifestyle, is going against the grain of the familiar. It is like trying to force a tree that is swaying in the wind to go into the opposite direction. It feels counterintuitive, against the grain of myself.
The brain is a powerful motivator and it is hard to meddle with hard wiring. But it is possible. But how?
The keys are as follows, as far as I'm concerned:
1. Dedication
2. Perseverence
3. Consistency
and 4 is maybe one of the more important ones: believing that we are worthy of the outcome. i.e. I really am worthy of being healthy. Although many will say "sure I am worthy of it" this falls flat on its face in reality because they don't walk the walk. Often that attitude comes from a sense of entitlement that things should just come easily and be given to us just because we feel we feel we are entitled to it.
It takes time and hard work to change an attitude. But brain science shows us that the brain is very malleable in many cases. It will adapt and with enough energy on our part, eventually those neurons rewire themselves and adjust to the new sheriff in town.
yee haw
