Change starts with your thoughts, not with your actions

Have you ever tried to change a behavior pattern and failed? Pretty much all of us have. Maybe you were trying to get up a little earlier, so you could have time for a real breakfast, but you kept hitting the snooze button. Or maybe you have been trying to leave work at 5pm, but you somehow always have just one more thing to do and the next thing you know, it’s 6:35. Or maybe you want to start speaking up in those senior leader meetings you’ve recently been invited to attend. But every time you are about to say something, you second guess yourself and then before you know it, the moment has passed and another meeting ends without your contributions. 

I see clients struggle with this all the time. They’re so smart and so good at problem solving, and yet, they're unable to sustain what seems like a simple behavior change permanently. They decide to double down, but doubling down never seems to work, and they wind up even more frustrated than when they started. They may even begin to question their own abilities since the change they’re trying to make seems SO simple.

Here’s the real truth about why things aren’t working: changing your actions starts with changing your thinking. 

How we think is the key to everything. The brain has 60,000 to 90,000 thoughts a day, and by default, we believe all of them. Where did these thoughts come from? Most of your thoughts are just the default programming you learned from how you were parented, schooled, and socialized. You also learned a lot of your thinking from culture at large - books, movies, magazine articles, yes, but also the norms of the country or community you grew up in. What you think is good or bad or normal all comes down to how you learned to define those concepts as a kid.  

As womxn, we learned a certain set of social expectations, which usually included being good at almost everything, not bothering people, and taking responsibility for other people’s feelings. If we could make it look effortless and be just the right amount of pretty, that would also be good. 

As adults, this unexamined programming is often running our lives, even when it directly contradicts our chosen values. While you may have recognized and changed some of these thoughts over the years, a lot of them may just seem like the truth to you. 

Moreover, we confuse our thoughts with who we are as people. We think our thoughts mean something about us rather than seeing them as something we were taught to believe. 

When we want to change our behavior, but we’re struggling to pull it off, it’s because we have thoughts that are keeping us in our old behavior pattern. 

That’s why it’s not as easy as just changing X behavior to Y behavior.  

We have unconscious beliefs that are getting in the way. This is why changing our behavior always comes back to changing our thoughts. 

When we try to change our behavior without changing our thoughts, it’s like swimming against the tide. When we change our thinking first, changing our behavior is much easier, because we’re not fighting our own subconscious beliefs. 

How do you change the way you think? The fastest, most effective way I’ve ever seen is to work with a coach (that’s why even coaches have coaches). Coaches can spot your thinking in ways that you can’t, because your own thoughts will just seem true to you.  

But here’s what you can do on your own: pay attention to how you talk to yourself inside your own head. Are the thoughts you’re thinking helping you show up as the person you want to be? Or are they creating the exact opposite? When you discover thoughts that don’t help you be your best you, examine them. Ask yourself where they came from. See if they are ideas you like and want to keep or if they’re only thoughts you uploaded from your childhood that no longer work for you. Noticing how and what we think isn’t easy, and one of the best ways to facilitate doing it is by writing things down. Last week, I shared a free download of some of my favorite writing prompts - you can download that here.

If you don’t have time to waste figuring this out on your own, I’m currently accepting 1:1 clients and corporate speaking engagements. Click here to learn more.