The Secret to Making Positive Changes for Your Life

The biggest secret, in my experience, to making positive changes is to NEVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER give up.  Change is hard - very, very hard.  I've talked to probably hundreds of people who were trying to make changes and struggling.  Plus I may be the queen of taking a very long time to finally get a positive change integrated into my life.  A lot of people just give up and never try again.  "It's too hard," they say to themselves.  "I'm a failure," they say to themselves.  I did that for a long time. 

I had a friend that was trying to make a change in her behavior.  I asked her how she was doing and she replied, "Oh, I tried it for a day.  It was too hard so I stopped."  Oh sweet spirits of transformation!  She was a perfect reflection of me.  I thought to myself although I didn't say it to her, "She's totally uncommitted.  She wants change to be easy."  Then I realized I was just the same way.

Finally I got so disgusted I started researching solutions.  I've probably read dozens of books on the topics of self-discipline, organization, time management, spiritual help for sloth, how to get past procrastination, and on and on.  Each of them was a help for a day or two or three or maybe even four.  Then I would totally forget about the whole thing and go back to my usual way of living which was none too good for me.  Weeks or months later I might remember and try again.  This stuff went on for years.  It was very discouraging. 

Finally I saw that the main problem was that I was giving up over and over again, and that my bad memory about what I was trying to change was just my way of quitting.  So I started doing everything I could to remind myself of what I was doing.  Little bit by little bit, I began to change. 

For example, just simple things like taking my medicine and nutritional supplements every day were huge problems.  I was dependent for my well being on remembering to take them, but I forgot several days a week.  I made new resolves but forgot again.  I got uncomfortable and read some more books, wrote in my journal about it.  Eventually as I kept trying, I succeeded. 

It's probably been two or three years that I've been consistent about taking meds and supplements.  So I know for a fact that when I keep trying to find ways that work for me to change a habit, eventually I find something that works.  Therefore, I deeply believe that everybody can do it if they NEVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER give up.

Living from the Heart

One of the ways I honor my decision to live from the heart is to give myself just a couple of minutes each morning with my coffee to ask my heart what would honor loving kindness today.  It's amazing how quickly I move from the things that really don't matter on my to do list to the things that do.  Usually I immediately know that staying in touch with people is at the top of the list, caring for the living things in my household is next, and then caring for my own well being which usually is exercise and good food, prayer and meditation, and rest.

Please, I Beg You! Stop Making Those New Year's Resolutions!!!

It's a really, really bad idea to set yourself up to join all those people who are at the gym in January and gone in February!  Or whatever the equivalent goal is that you're thinking about setting for yourself.  If you're anything like me, the goals you think you should set for yourself are based on someone else's ideas about what would be good for you - maybe even ideas you got when you were a child or ideas you got from the media.  Ideas about how you should look, what you should do with your time and money, what kind of car you should drive, what your home should be like, and anything else you can think of that would (you think) make you more socially acceptable.  None of those goals actually originate from you - from the real you - from your heart and soul.  So maybe they aren't even what would benefit you.

Of course, there are some almost universal goals that probably would benefit you - things like eating healthier in 2013 or exercising more, or getting more sleep.  The thing is, if they are just "shoulds" in your mind, the deepest part of you isn't going to help you achieve them.   What has worked for me is a whole paradigm shift from "shoulds" to "living from the heart."

Since "living from the heart" sounds so lofty and inaccessible, I will just list a few things I've done and still do at the beginning of each year to give myself some direction:

1.  Make a collage using poster board and pictures from magazines.  I take 30 minutes (set a timer) and rip out pictures that just seem to speak to me.  I deliberately pay no attention to what I'm thinking.  When the time is up, I just make a collage from the pictures I've accumulated.  I still don't try to think about why I liked the pictures.  When the collage is done, THEN I look at them and think about what those particular pictures say to me about how my deepest self wants to live life in the next year.

2.  Spend some quiet time thinking about how I can best take care of myself this next year.  What kinds of things do I enjoy that I've not gotten around to lately.  Make a list of those.

3.  Spend a little more quiet time thinking about the people I love and what I could do that would make them feel even more loved this year.

4.  Last but not least, I spend a little more quiet time to think about what I would do with this year if it were the last one I had on the earth.  Usually some thoughts about my life purpose are part of this meditation.  I believe all of us know unconsciously what our life purpose is and even just a little time asking ourselves what we can do this coming year to advance that purpose - whatever we believe that is - will, when added to the about three activities - give us direction that we will really WANT to take - that will take very little or no willpower to acheive.