Why would I want to spend my time every day doing the same things over and over again? Isn’t this just a waste of my time?
I have been asked this over and over again and NO is always the answer.
The only way that our brain (which is our computer) can change is when we reprogram it to do things a different way.
Joe Dispenza says that by the age of 35 if we are not consciously living, we are like robots following a set of programs every day. This is why I believe that it is so hard for us to change as so many of our bad habits are set deep within our neural pathways.
It only takes 45-60 days to create a new habit and the brain doesn’t know whether that habit is good for you or not. It just follows what you do repeatedly and sets that as a habit. Most of our habits we don’t even know are there.
I remember sitting down to dinner once with my mum, and she said why are you so greedy? I nearly fell off my chair! Me, greedy? Surely not! What did she mean by this? Our nearest and dearest can be our biggest critics and I could have taken offence, but I knew there was a big lesson in this for me.
So, I asked the question, what do you mean? I am a size 12 in clothes, I am not hugely overweight so how could I be classed as greedy? She said you always have to pile your plate up and not leave anything behind. Wow, I thought that was true! So I began to explore why this was.
When I was very small, I was not allowed to leave the table unless I had finished all of my dinner. This was torture for me as I didn’t have a big appetite, and I had a lot of playing that I wanted to do instead of sitting sometimes for 2 hours to eat my dinner.
This also resulted in me being sent to bed for refusing to eat it all. Yuck!
So, the habit began all those years ago, that if I wanted to get things done and move forward with things in life, I had to eat quickly and eat everything on my plate so that I could be free. Wow!
I would never have classed myself as greedy, and certainly didn’t knowingly set that habit. I have since completely changed my eating habits, making myself leave food behind and boy it was a challenge to change I tell you. Over and over, I had that feeling that I needed to eat everything and had to almost force myself to change that program/habit in me.
Those voices deep within me started, is it safe to leave that food? Will I be punished? I love to please my dad, will he be disappointed? What will people think?
Then the uncomfortable feelings started in my body. I had to push through, distract myself and ignore them.
Every day, over and over until eventually my new habit was set in my mind and body that I was free anyway, and I could eat or leave whatever I wanted. Still sometimes I have to remind myself of this when I see my plate piled high at a buffet.
You see our habits don’t just get formed and stuck within our brain, oh no, once it has passed through to the body (muscle memory) and the nervous system (feelings) they can be really tough to break.
I have read, learnt and studied for years on how best to change our habits and it really comes down to repetition, perseverance and pushing through the discomfort. I challenge you to please give it a try, find a habit that you know you have, whether it’s coffee in your favourite mug in the morning, watching soaps in the evening or scrolling on social media for hours, take a habit and change it. Just watch and monitor the things that come up for you. It’s quite funny when we realise what us humans are like and how we work. What might happen is, the internal voice will start. Oh, don’t worry about that, start next week! Why do you want to change, what’s wrong with this habit? Ignore her, she doesn’t know anything!
Then you will feel an uncomfortable feeling in your body that you may want to appease.
Yes, these may be some of the things that that voice in your head comes up with in trying to talk you out of changing. It likes the comfort and certainty of keeping those old habits and doing the same things over and over again, even when these things are bad for you. We can have huge safety officers inside of us trying to keep us safe, my question to that officer would be, what are you trying to keep me safe from? I am safe!
I hear parents saying to their children, "I have told you 3 times not to bang the door when you come in", they think that they are able to tell them 3 times and they will then change and say, “yes ok I will never do that again.”
So, I ask the parents, have you ever decided to give up drinking alcohol or eating chocolate? If so, how many times did you keep that promise? Of course, the answer is usually never! It’s so easy for us to tell someone else to do or to stop doing something, but it’s just so hard for us to do it. It’s quite funny when you think about it like this, but say it’s an addiction that is causing chaos in your life and the lives of those around you. It’s hard to change but it’s definitely possible.
So back to the Happy Hacks, the daily small promises that we make to ourselves to do something that’s good for us over and over again every day. They are so important so that you can change those habits deep within your neural pathways so that they change not just for today but forever.
You must just keep doing them, every day, for at least 2 months and then assess the changes along the way. You will start to see small wins in your life.
Doing these small things for you every day enables you to feel important to you, to commit to yourself and to set habits that will find you happiness in ways you never thought possible.
Someone said to me today, HappyMe is dynamic in its simplicity. It’s true, finding happiness is not massively complicated even though some apps and gurus will try to make you believe it is. It’s just about keeping those small promises to yourself every day, changing those habits that don’t serve you anymore and this then leads you to loving yourself fully, which of course is the most important thing in the world.