Making Change

As humans we are always trying to make some form of change. Whether it's trying to lose weight, quit smoking, quit gambling, or any other "problems" (or what we consider our problems) there are always challenges. The hardest part of change is overcoming the challenges and ACTUALLY changing.

How many times have you tried to lose weight but were unsuccessful? Or tried to quit a bad habit and got so close to quitting but ended up giving up?

All of us have our struggles in change but there is something you can do to try to become more successful in your path to change next time: Closely examine your motivation versus the challenges.

What I mean by that is to truly change (or change temporarily) your motivation needs to outweigh the challenges/cons of change. To do this, I would recommend making 2 columns. In the first column write down all the challenges/cons to changing. For example, if you were trying to quit smoking, a con may be losing a part of your social life because some of your friends smoke. Or having more stress if you stopped because smoking is oftentimes used as a method to relax. Another challenge would be to have to find alternative methods to relax.
After you complete this column, move onto the second column. In this column write down all the pros to making the change. Lets stick with the smoking example. Some pros may include: healthier lungs, longer life, no bad breath, no odor of smoking, etc.

Then look at the pros and cons. Chances are the pros outweigh the cons (why else would you want to change?). Ask yourself some thought provoking questions for example if you made the change, would you really miss the items in the "cons" column? The point of this activity is to get your motivation to outweigh the challenges.

Change is going to be an ongoing topic here because life is about changing and improving ourselves. Will write more later and in the meantime, start writing down what you want to change and try the pros/cons activity. Good luck! :)