How to Make Life Changes Last: Habit + Intention

How to Make Life Changes Last: Habit + Intention

Power of Habit and Intention

“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” -Benjamin Franklin

A thriving life is largely determined by the extent you have a clear vision, habits and intentions set up. Your body and subconscious mind (read about subconscious mind here first) sharply focuses your emotional energy to create thoughts, ideas, and actions that align with your vision. If you do not set that vision and target, you will be firing aimlessly though life.

Have you set your intentions and vision of who you want to be, how you want to feel, what your purpose is, what you want to accomplish in life, or how you want others to feel around you? If you have not set these, the worlds intentions for us take over, and they usually are not the most life giving, including: “to prove your worth to others” or “to make sure no one gets upset or angry” “to stay safe and comfortable” – these could be driving you without you knowing it.

To influence change, you must gain the cooperation of your subconscious mind. You need a vision to energize your mind and body and focus the direction of change.

Your energy flows where you have the most CLARITY. Without clarity- your energy will be all over the place- excited one day, lost the next.

Habit Lifestyle

In programming habits, they can be mindsets, or actions. Choose the kind of person you want to be, and wire in mindsets and actions that align with that.

We can cultivate and grow significantly in any area, but we have to wire it in to our biology.

Habits are actions we do without thinking about it. Your brain is always looking to be most efficient. It is looking to put as many things as possible an autopilot. Unfortunately, many mindsets that are on autopilot for us, are not in our favor.

To cultivate any trait or habit you desire to have, you need intense focus and repetition. So often we can get ahead of ourselves, wanting to change multiple things about ourself at once. Unfortunately our brain does not work like that, and this usually results in stress, overwhelm, and mission aborted.

When we become masters of focused intention, our lives will evolve into a rhythm of developing into the best version of ourselves, and who God created us to be. The beauty about this is, each and every day- you become more alive, more passionate, and better than you were the day before. Eventually you will look back and notice you are unrecognizable from the person you were a year ago, every single year. The possibilities of who you can become are beyond what you can imagine.

Below is a little Habit 101 information that will get you off to the best possible start implementing this into your daily life. Even making the decision to start making habits is a habit;)

The more you do this, the easier and more part of your natural lifestyle is becomes.

Habits 101

Will Power:

  • Biggest determining factor in success- happiness – productivity
  • You only have a certain amount of will power per day- choices, social media, switching your attention constantly from one thing to the next- all drain it it. The more you have to think about, choosing to work out or eat healthy or be present- the more your will power goes down so by the end of the day- you will be exhausted- not making the best decisions
  • The goal is to create habits that so you do not have to use willpower.
  • Use your will power to create habits!

Master Physiology Fundamentals First

Pick Your Keystone Habit

  • Choose one habit that if you mastered it, it would have the biggest impact on your life. What is one thing you can do to change the most areas in your life.
  • What is one thing that you could probably stop doing that would significantly change your life. Stop that replace that with something else.

What is your why

  • Why are you making the positive choices that you are making? – focus on that and you will be able to handle any hard times that come with making the change.
  • When you feel like giving up, return to your why.

Make 100% commitment

  • Make it nonegotionable- not 99.5
  • 100% is easy 99.5% is not
  • Remove negotiation

Do it daily

  • Needs to be done daily for a period of time

Embrace the Process!

  • Taking on any new mindset or habit goes through 3 phases-
  • first 10 days seem unbearable, questioning your decision to take it on
  • next 10 days seem just uncomfortable
  • last ten days seem unstoppable- you begin to see the benefits.
  •  Keep going despite feelings at the beginning, you truly are developing into an amazing person, carrying an amazing purpose only you can accomplish, even if it does not feel like it.

Set Up Triggers

  • Without daily triggers, our well intended desires seem to dissapear in the midst of daily activities.
  • Set some kind of trigger that you will use throughout the day that reminds you of your goal and what you want to be focusing on.
  • Examples:
    • Set a timer on your phone that goes off 3x a day that reminds you to stop and remember your goal and what you are accomplishing.
    • Personally, I reflect right when I wake up, before lunch, and before bed to make it easy to remember.
    • Every time you get in the car or walk through a door- remember your why.

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5 Comments

  • CouponDivaAndi

    like i always say – it’s gotta start with prayer first and foremost 🙂

    Reply
    • Renewing All Things

      Absolutely!

      Reply
  • Terri Lynn Grothe

    great post, important things we all need to know about

    Reply
    • Renewing All Things

      Thanks Terri!

      Reply
  • Danielle @More Than Four Walls

    Removing negotiation. That’s my weakness. “Just one piece…” “I’ll workout twice as long tomorrow.” UGH!

    Reply