1. Create the change to create a different reality
Creating change when everything is flowing smoothly, when everything is going well, is usually less likely to happen. Giving up good financial conditions or a respectable and comfortable status, even if they do not meet our desires and our dreams, is very difficult. Money, stability, and security often eliminate desires, dreams, and aspirations. For this reason, according to many, there will be no movement from the familiar and comfortable place until one becomes truly fed up or a crisis is created.
When the situation changes and becomes complex, We consider what we will lose if this is the case. Often, real change occurs when the days are difficult, when we reach rock bottom. The idea is understandable to us, but the main reason is our habits. It’s simply difficult for us to move away from habits that have worked for us for years.
Change is essentially a change of habits. By creating new habits we create different results and therefore a different reality. Personal training It’s exactly that, practicing creating new habits.
The question worth asking once in a while, and in times of crisis – is what I do with my life really what I want or have I simply gotten used to it? Does this job or this workplace allow me to bring out the most in me, to flourish, to create, to be in my full presence, or is it simply the fear of change and movement that is holding me back. Clinging to the past is clinging to our habits, is this the right way for you to live?
2. Create a change in habits
Self-confidence is the willingness to try and experiment. There is always a possibility that we will fail and maybe we will succeed. The willingness to try is what self-confidence means. The belief in the ability to deal with the situation, the belief that success will strengthen me and failure will not break me, the understanding that it is important to try because this is the significant learning and development.
We all rely on messages from our environment. What is right and what is wrong, what is appropriate and what is not, what will help us succeed and what will not. This is the basis on which we measure our success and failure. Are they truly ours? Do they come from ourselves? Are they right for us?
It’s painful and disappointing not to get what you’ve been chasing and investing in, but it’s much worse to discover that what you’ve been chasing for so much time and energy isn’t your dream or desire at all. The gap between our hopes for ourselves and the reality of our lives sometimes hurts us deeply. (From Alain de Botton’s TED talk on the perception of success in modern society).
3. Self-awareness enables change
Self-awareness means we know. Know the strengths as well as the limitations. Know from a place of knowledge. Knowledge is what already exists. Is there anything beyond that? How do you allow something new to come in?
This requires a different experience, the courage to say thoughts you didn’t dare to say for fear of criticism, for fear that they are irrelevant, for fear of what would happen if it really happened. The possibility of saying things you didn’t dare to say, listening to something you didn’t experience, is what ultimately creates the true understanding of what is truly important to you. It is also what creates the clarity of what is right for you now, who I am and what I want to do with my life.
To create change in life, you need to understand that our brain uses all its conservation mechanisms to protect us. Regular habits, familiar processes, what is certain is what works. What feels right. But we forget just one thing – everything that feels familiar to us will feel right to us according to a rabbi. But that really doesn’t mean that everything that is familiar to us from the past is right for us today.
In the same way, everything new will feel uncomfortable to us, will not flow, will not be certain. Because it is new. It is not yet a habit. If we give in to this feeling, to the sensation, we will very quickly return to the old, comfortable habit and convince ourselves that this is how comfortable it is, this is how good it is. But this is not necessarily true. If we have managed to let a new process in our lives become a habit, it will feel comfortable, good, and natural to us.
We all learn with our heads, understand the importance and logic, but it becomes part of our lives only when it passes through the body, becomes a habit and a skill.
4. Practically
How do you turn an idea that is clearly true, good, and progressive into a habit? For example, getting up in the morning and going for a run, or picking up the phone or writing a WhatsApp message to someone you don’t know, or having a conversation that we are uncomfortable with but that we know is important?
My first and favorite method recently – the five-second rule (an interesting method and you can read more in Mel Robbins’ book, which is backed by research on its application and why it works.) This law says that no more than five seconds should pass from the moment you decide to do something until you start it. Why? Because this is the time when scary thoughts and arguments based on fear and old habits come into play and suppress us from doing something new. What do we do in those five seconds? Just like NASA! We count down and just do it. In those five seconds, our brain has moved from relying on the old habit to more advanced and conscious thinking, and here we already have a chance to do something.
Studies have shown that consistency is the name of the game in success and achieving significant results. If we look at any professional athlete, it seems that the repetitive training for hours upon hours is what made the person a professional. However, it is clear that not all repetition will bring results in every case, but it will definitely improve your abilities.
5. Innate talent or acquired talent…
People who claim to me that they don’t have the confidence to speak in front of people, even in Zoom discussions, or that they don’t have the charisma, or the ability to converse with unfamiliar people, and the claim is that I wasn’t born with it… That’s right. Not everyone is born with any talent. And those who are born with such abilities find it more natural and easier. But that doesn’t mean that with training, understanding, and repetition you don’t achieve better results that will satisfy you and help you move forward.
Are we so fixated on our self-perception of ourselves and life that we ourselves do not allow ourselves to change? Or maybe we are not fixed, but simply afraid. Afraid that we will not be accepted, that we will be rejected, that we will not succeed, that we will not be a part of, afraid of making a mistake, of failing, of feeling shame….
Professor Daniel Kahneman talks about how we create our memory of things. Because it is our memory that ultimately creates the identity of who we are. What is our story. And memory is not fixed by experience but by what happened in the end. If you enjoyed the event but its ending was bitter, the memory will be fixed on the bitter ending and all the good experience will be forgotten. The conclusions will be accordingly. Therefore, we actually rely on our memories and not on our experiences. We do not learn from experience but from memory.
6. Agree to be afraid and acknowledge the truth
It is impossible to be fully and meaningfully productive in the world of work if we arrive there very partial, hesitant, and afraid that our true selves will be seen. The pressure created by the need to hide and try to be someone other than who I usually am can explode at the wrong moments.
As a CEO in the field of mental health once told me, under pressure, your true self comes out. And management and leadership work is work that comes with a lot of pressure. We can’t hide parts of ourselves, of ourselves, and certainly not all the time. Maybe it would be right to do professional personal work and allow ourselves to be in a more correct place.
The way to stop being afraid of our authentic self, of who we really are, of the understanding that we are not perfect and see it in ourselves, and that it is okay, is to accept!. To accept that we are in a process of learning and improving, that we cannot be perfect from the beginning or perfect at all, but we can definitely improve. If we agree to be in a learning mode, we will achieve much, much more.
Bringing the complete and complex authentic self with awareness of our limitations and a willingness to listen and learn is the beginning of good change.
7. It helps in the workplace.
First of all, it allows us to be in a place of cooperation with others and allows us to better deal with uncertainty. Super important parameters for leadership, progress, and meaningful action. In addition, these are also the factors that allow us to build trust and communicate, deal with stress and anxiety, which is what we need in order to get the best and most out of ourselves.
