Change Your Life In 48 Days

By Author: Jonathan R Taylor
Total Articles: 19
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We're all creatures of habit. When we drive home in the afternoon from work, rarely do we remember all the traffic lights and turns we encountered along the way. We always seem to take the same route each day, so naturally it becomes programmed into our brains. Other aspects of our lives are much the same way from the time we get up in the morning until we retire to bed at night. We all have own little way of doing things for just about every part of lives. Any break in that routine can often cause tremendous stress.

I met with a client recently who wanted to change careers desperately, yet as we talked about moving in a new direction, she began gripping the armrests on the chair tighter and tighter. You could sense the anxiety in her voice at the thought of changing what had been a comfortable (though miserable) routine in her life.

The truth is, 90 percent of our normal behavior is based on habits. What's hard to do, is develop new habits. Change in routine is stressful for so many people. Think about it for a minute- why do most New Years resolutions go unfulfilled? Because change is tough! Not only ...
... that, change takes time. No one develops a new habit overnight. Ask anyone that's ever tried to quit smoking.

Research shows that it takes an average of 21-30 days to change an old habit, depending on how deeply entrenched it is in our lives. Most people, however, never get past the first or second week.

In order for a person to make a serious change in their career, they will need to make some habit changes. It doesn't have to be enormous change all at once either. Many people change old habits incrementally. For example, if you normally watch three hours of television (which I don't recommend) each night, and you simply take one of those hours to devote to reading, studying, or developing new skills, you've spent nine 40-hour work weeks in a year on developing new skills that might change your life forever. Enormous change begins with incremental steps.

Make it a goal to start systematically improving one behavior at a time. Remember the famous quote by Einstein- Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

If you need direction in making incremental changes click here.

To access the links in this article, visit www.careercalling.com/Archives.htm and read edition June 24, 2005.
About the Author Find out why Dave Ramsey recommends the program that we teach. Visit www.careercalling.com!