“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny”

– MK Gandhi.

How often do you stop actually thinking what you tend to think most of the time?

Not everyday I bet.

But, I dare to say, you do know if something in your life is as you want it to be, or reversely if it’s not.

Funnily, and as you can literally understand from the quote above, many of the situations where you find yourself today are more or less linked to the way you think, and more importantly, what you allow yourself to internalise from those passing thoughts.

You can call this link between your thoughts and physical circumstances manifesting, guidance, or even deliberate goal setting strategy. It doesn’t matter. But what matters is what type of habits we create. Intentionally or not, and that comes back to the story you keep telling yourself.

Habits – the trend of the moment

It’s hard to ignore the buzz around James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” in recent years, especially across social media platforms. While I haven’t read it myself, the book’s essence seems more or less straightforward: to change your habits, and consequently, your behaviour, you must be clear about your intentions, make them attractive, easy, and ultimately, satisfying.

This approach makes perfect sense on paper, offering a seemingly achievable roadmap for behavior change. However, as we all know, theory and practice often diverge significantly..

Personally, I have multiple times kind of decided on the whim of motivation that now I am going to change the XYZ in my life and reach whatever I have set my mind to.

I mean, sure you need the intention and motivation to get started, no doubt, but it’s far from enough to effect lasting change. Instead, the real journey toward developing new habits begins with rigorous mental groundwork

In practice, to get there, you need to do so much mental work before you can even get into that level where you can proudly say that you have developed some new habits. And it is that mental process, kind of pre-work, that can feel foreign and uncomfortable. Yet it makes all the difference.

So, let’s get into the root of any new change in your life, which will either take you up or break you down, the little voice in your head.

The story you are telling yourself

Sometimes, I feel like a hypocrite when it comes to the story I tell myself.

What I mean is that I strongly believe and know for a fact that I can learn almost anything I set my mind to. In practice this often means that I can navigate new contexts and opportunities relatively easy with the right mindset.

The amazing thing is that when you are genuinely confident (not arrogant though) in your ability to tackle new information and adapt to new contexts, others also start to believe in you, and things start slowly falling into place.

But, despite what was just said, there are days when everything seems to go south, and you feel like you’ve blown it all. In these situations, it’s easy to let negative feelings take over. You start to internalise these negative events as proof of your “eternal” failure, even when it’s not true, and you know it. You really have to fail in a way or another to understand what the whole process takes.

So, the real question here is: how should you talk to yourself, especially when you’re trying to change your life by changing your habits?

The key, I believe, lies in the beliefs you cultivate in your mind about yourself and your life every day. In other words, it’s about the story you want to develop, even if it doesn’t make sense yet or isn’t externally visible/ true today.

Certainly, you shouldn’t ignore the negative voices in your head or “lie” to yourself by believing you have millions in your bank account when you don’t, for example. But what I mean is the way you perceive the current state of things. Or, better said, how you decide to perceive and see them.

Do you believe the bad luck or discomfort are here forever and you’re doomed, or do you think there is room for development and change? This is the question that will make the first and biggest difference in your life over time.

I hope your answer leans towards believing there is always room for improvement. If and when that’s the case, let’s take the next step that will make all the difference in chancing after the little things, which eventually lead to bigger achievements in your life: setting up your environment for success.

Setting up the Scene: The Systems

You most likely know the saying “fake it till you make it,” which implies that to reach a certain level of success or competency, you need to pretend that you are already there.

Certainly, that is a powerful mental trick, but what it assumes, and for that reason tends to overlook, is that you kind of need to already know precisely how the end goal or success looks for you. And you see, that is the secret in many achievements, visualising I mean.

You need to know how success (whatever that means to you) looks like in practice, and then from there, you can sort of reverse-engineer your process.

The tricky part in that, however, is to really let your mind imagine it and kind of make it part of your persona in your head, as much as woohoo this might sound. And this is where we come back to what was said in the previous section about the storyline you are developing for yourself day after day.

So once you know where you are aiming, we can talk about the obvious factor, which makes part of the habit creation formula of James Clear. So what does that mean in practice?

Well, my take on it is that when you want to create a new habit and behaviour, the triggers need to be there, as visibly as possible, when you are in the context where the change should happen.

I think the easiest example is if you are trying to go to the gym in the morning – have your stuff ready so that you can just wake up, dress up and go. Or, if you want to learn a new skill, schedule it on your calendar as if it were an obligatory work meeting. You know what will push you to do whatever you want to do.

In simple terms, you need to set up “traps” for yourself and in a way that if you are trying to pass those pivotal moments, you cannot help but being fully aware that you are consciously choosing not to pursue your goals and promises you made to yourself earlier.

And finally, yes, it is often uncomfortable when you need to engage in something new and unfamiliar and where the activity itself feels almost like a waste of time. But, if you have made the promise to yourself to go after something and create a new habit, you need to have the system in place that will almost force you to show up for yourself even when it doesn’t feel like that.

However, even if you have the so-called system in place, it doesn’t mean that the magic will happen overnight, which cause most people to quit before they almost started. So how do you deal with that?

Living with the non-linearity

One of the most critical aspects to acknowledge in any project or journey of improvement is the need to accept the non-linear nature of progress, particularly the emotions tied to it.

By non-linearity I’m referring to the fact that some days align perfectly with your plans, and motivation flows effortlessly. Conversely, there are days when optimism is hard to come by, making the entire endeavor seem pointless, with no visible results in sight.

I am definitely not one of those who manage to stay optimistic all the time and not feel defeated by the challenges when I am going after some of my biggest goals. However, I’ve kind of developed a valuable approach for handling these situations.

Firstly, commit to doing even the smallest tasks daily (or based on your timeframe) that bring you closer to your desired outcomes. Many days may require you to push yourself, but consistency is the key. It is particularly for these situations why the ”traps” and systems are must. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, allow yourself to experience those tough days and acknowledge that they’re unpleasant. Embrace these feelings as cliché as it sounds.

It’s surprisingly liberating to accept that as it really is an inherent part of striving for what you truly desire. By reminding yourself of this fact can propel you to the next level, where consistent efforts compound into satisfaction from accomplishments and, ultimately, into confidence and a new set of habits.

Ultimately, the power lies in compounding. It’s in showing up for yourself each day by doing at least the bare minimum that you need to do to change whatever you are trying to change.

Conclusion

An ironic truth about any change endeavor is that eventually, the new behavior becomes so ingrained that you hardly notice when real change has taken place in your life. It’s during these moments that you realize it wasn’t as daunting as you initially believed. Progress was possible because you took small steps every day, even on days when it felt challenging. And once you’ve reached your goal, it feels almost second nature, prompting you to ask yourself, “Why didn’t I start earlier?!