How To Maintain Long Lasting Changes
Although changes are fear, change is always a good thing. Making changes are a vital part of growing as a person, accepting these changes is difficult but maintaining changes for a long time and making them a part of your daily regime is harder. Here is a list of things you can do to make a change last.
1. Assess how things are now.
What do you see in yourself? What are you doing? How do you operate in a given situation? What consequences (good and bad) are you experiencing because of what you see yourself doing?
2. Accept yourself as you are.
Today, right now in your life, this is who and how you are. Decide that you love yourself no matter what.
3. Take responsibility.
Be honest with yourself and take responsibility for all that you are doing and not doing (good and bad), and the effects your actions have on others and yourself (good and bad).
4. Identify what you want to change.
What do you want to change about yourself? What actions or behaviors are you demonstrating that are not helping you? What would be a better option for you in each identified situation? What do you want to do differently?
5. Commit to making that change.
Make the decision to do the work and to make the change(s) you’ve listed. Form an agreement with yourself in whatever way is helpful to you (written or otherwise) so that you know you will do what you say you want to do.
6. Educate yourself.
Seek internal and external resources to gather information on how you can make the change(s) that you just committed to making.
Be honest about your past so that your can use your own set of experiences to break patterns that no longer serve you.
7. Set goals.
Make the change process tangible and measurable, to an extent. What can you do each day to get yourself closer to who you want to be? Write down, from little to big, the goals you will achieve.
8. Take action toward your goals.
Every day, honor your commitment. Act with an awareness of the changes you are making. Do things and engage in behaviors that are congruent with your goals.
9. Have compassion for yourself.
It is said that it takes 30 days to change a habit, so be patient and kind to yourself during this journey. Express your gratitude to yourself for doing the work. Love yourself each day so that you believe you are worthy of the change(s).
10. Take time to reflect.
Take the time to assess your progress. Love and praise yourself for each bit of change you are making. Revise your goals or any other part of this protocol as you deem necessary. Learn from what you’re doing, or not doing. Do the best you can.
The things that started being important to me two years ago are still things that I am working to sustain everyday. I am doing the work, and now with this system in place, I know that I can continue making the changes that I see best for me.
I’m taking action on an even bigger dream that I couldn’t have realized and committed to if I hadn’t opened the door to my own curiosity and started my own journey of personal change.
Are you ready to make the changes you’ve been contemplating for days, weeks, months, or even years?
Sources - https://tinybuddha.com/blog/10-steps-to-create-lasting-change-in-your-life/