Change Your Perspective to Change Your Habits
People with a growth mindset are always looking to change their habits. The way that most people try to approach a new habit is by rote repetition with the thought of, “if I do X for 21 days in a row, then X will surely be a habit through shear willpower”. I think this sort of advice has become deeply instilled in anyone who has absorbed self-improvement materials. This is not bad advice on its face — after all, habits do have to be performed on a consistent basis to be considered a habit. However, in my own life I have found it more effective to shift my perspective before starting to pick up a new habits.
The shift in perspective actually requires looking beyond the individual habit and instead focusing on one or many long term goals. Instead of looking 21 days into the future, look 10 years into the future. This immediately changes how our mind processes a new activity. Instead of thinking, “I have to keep this up for the next 21 days” in order to make sure it sticks, your mindset changes to “I am choosing to do X today because it supports who/where I want to be”. Setting these long term goals and clearly visualizing yourself in the future achieving them does two things to support a change in habit:
1) Sets a clear mental picture, where the habits you wish to pick up are simply part of your life
2) It makes it much easier to process missed days. We know that consistency is important, but perfection is certainly not required to meet long term goals
A great, and common, example is exercise. We all want to be healthy and some of us have terrific willpower that can drive exercise to become a habit in our life. However, for most folks, regular exercise is a distant goal. We know we should be healthy, but we haven’t fully committed to that vision of ourselves in the future. This makes those first few weeks of habit building a massive uphill battle, where you can be derailed by simply missing one or two days (or by eating that entire pint of ice cream).
However, if we change our perspective, we can visualize ourselves 10 years from now being fit and healthy (perhaps even wearing sporty running shoes in this vision). We know that this version of ourselves has been working out consistently to stay on track and getting there took a lot of hard work. Now, exercise isn’t a habit I am trying to develop, it’s simply part of who I am. Even if I can only hit the gym half of the time over the next month, I know it’s better than where I started and a hell of a lot closer to where I want to go. Working out isn’t an uphill battle where every day is make or break — it instead becomes a downhill race towards my future self.
Small shifts in mindset may seem trivial, but I think we can all reflect on habits we have tried and failed to implement in the past. If building that habit seemed hard and small mistakes on the path to building that habit were tripping you up, then perhaps a change in mindset is worth a shot. I have successfully applied this same line of thinking to my health, my finances, and my work. I take those small steps toward my goal on a consistent basis because I know that the person I am going to be in 10, 20, and 30 years from now has been taking those same steps.
If you have been struggling with adopting a new habit, I encourage you to try shifting your perspective and visualizing yourself 10+ years into the future and trying again. I hope this is helpful and if you want any specific advice or coaching, please contact me through medium and I would be happy to provide personalized advice to help you start on and reach your goals!
