“If you want things in your life to change, you have to change things in your life.” – Kevin Trudeau
People often try to change their behavior when they decide they want to make personal improvements. But is changing behavior enough? I believe one problem why we are not as successful as we want to be is that we don’t actually change our thinking to match the decision of the change in behavior we want to make. This action of changing our thoughts to match the actions of the decisions we make is important in the success formula.
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he:” – Proverbs 23:12
Our thoughts are where our behaviors originate, so in order to change our behaviors permanently we have to change our thoughts about them, permanently. When our thoughts contradict our behaviors we see varied results. When our thoughts reinforce our behaviors, we see consistent results. For example, if you are one who tends to be late, and are always thinking “I am going to be late”, then you most likely will be. If you try to change your behavior by waking up 15 minutes earlier so you won’t be late but continue to think “I’m going to be late”, then the change in behavior probably won’t help you much. You will most likely continue to be late. If you want to stop being late permanently, you have to stop thinking about being “late” and start thinking “I’m always early” and believe it! If you are trying to change years of behavior, you likely have all those years of misaligned thoughts to change, so don’t expect to see permanent change immediately. It can take time to create new thought patterns to manifest a different result. Remember to always think the best of yourself.
“Whether you think you can or can’t you are probably right”. – Henry Ford
You might think changing your thoughts is an obvious thing to do, but the idea of changing our behavior is almost always more appealing than putting in the effort required to manifest the change. You have to believe what you think and that’s really not always easy to do especially when it comes to our own opinions of ourselves. It’s also easier to be lazy with our thoughts and our vocabulary. Putting in the effort to change one’s thoughts is similar to going to the gym to lift weights. You want to be seen doing it, but the work is hard and you quickly learn you can’t fake it.
What I like to do is to think in the “Positive Tense“. Thinking in the “Positive Tense” is more than reciting and remembering affirmations. It requires being in the present, living in the here and now, applying positive words to the thoughts we have and words we use about everything and believing in those positive thoughts. If you keep your thoughts focused in one direction, with one accord, you will find that it is easier to make positive changes in your life.
Give it a try and tell me how it works for you!
