One of the best things that you can do when you feel your life is stagnating is to trigger change for positive growth. In my case, that change was massive. I moved into a new home.
With independence and responsibilities comes the ability to alter my environment and mindset. I can then match this to a new and improved version of myself.
Yet, triggering a change like this isn’t enough. You have to prepare and know what you’re changing and why. This blog post will help you with that, using moving out or changing environment as the core example.
Let’s begin by breaking the improvement down into two sections and explore from there. I’ll provide personal insights where appropriate to help relation and understanding.
Mental Change
The first half of our change is mental, and the core thing I will be discussing here is mindset. Emotions and thoughts also play a part in this and will change with a new environment. Ultimately, you want to feel good and positive no matter where you are living.
Unfortunately, though, this is not always possible. Your brain associates some locations with negative thoughts and emotions. For myself, this wasn’t extreme. But I did know that I couldn’t become the best version of myself unless I was independent. I needed a different environment.
“You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with”
This is a quote I struggle to forget. I find it so applicable to life and the current version of my personality. When in a new environment, such as when changing where you live, you’ll be surrounding yourself with different people. It’s vital that you choose people that are good for you and your future.
Part of the benefit of moving is being able to associate with different people. Through choosing the right people, you give yourself the best chances for a successful future. Look for people who share traits with the ideal version of yourself.
Are they hardworking, disciplined, motivated, and productive? Or are they lazy and settle for less than the best?
Do they have a positive growth mindset, or a negative fixed mindset?
Now that I’m independent, I have a greater degree of control over who I surround myself with. That will change how I approach the world. Considering the above questions has helped me and will also help you.
How To Shift Mindset
So how do we actually shift our mindset? I find the best way to do this is by changing how you approach the world. The best way to change how you approach the world is through changing where you spend your time.
For example, before moving, I was spending a lot of time on video games, which was resulting in a casual and undisciplined mindset. Now, after moving, I can control my time a lot more and have decided to focus on work instead. This, in turn, will alter my mindset so that it’s more productive and work-orientated.
Before you begin the shift, it’s important to understand what change to your mindset you want to make. It’s also important to know why you want to make it. The why is your motivation.
By knowing what you want, you’ll be better able to shift into that mindset. By knowing why you want it, you’ll be motivated to make changes.
I knew that a productive and work-orientated mindset is what I needed. I plan to spend the next few months working HARD on the business.
It would be difficult to support and act towards this mindset change without knowing what I wanted my new mindset to be. Think about the characteristics that are supportive of your desired mindset. Then, consider how those characteristics can fit into your life. Now begin implementing those characteristics.
For myself, that meant having a dedicated workspace and making sure I work a certain number of hours every day.
Your Goals
Another important mental change to consider is with your goals. If you’re not already setting goals, you should start, right now. If you are, you can alter your mindset by setting different goals. Make these goals correlate more with your desired mindset. As you achieve them, your mindset will shift.
Using my productive mindset example, an example previous goal I set was ‘complete a YouTube video this week’. This isn’t parallel to my desired productive mindset.
With a goal such as this, it’s easy to complete a short, low-quality video and mark that goal as completed. Instead, a better goal – now following SMART – would be ‘Complete an 8+ minute video using B-roll by the end of this week’.
Through being specific and including a form of measurability, the goal is more solid. The completions requirements are clear. If you wanted to learn more about goal setting, check out this in-depth blog post.
For another example, with this new environment, I want to begin working towards having a relationship. This will need a mindset shift itself, and setting appropriate goals can help with that.
The shift, here, is into a more confident mindset. For confidence, goals such as approaching X girls in public and getting outside of your comfort zone will help.
Improving your style and how you look will also help with becoming more confident. An appropriate goal might be ‘have 3 stylish outfits that look good on me by the end of the month’. Another could be ‘lift weights for at least one hour three times this week’.
Of course, thinking about and planning a mindset shift won’t do much without proper action. The same goes for different goals; if you don’t act towards completing them, nothing will change.
Physical Change
Physical change supports your mindset shift and any mental change you want to make. Without it, you won’t be making practical steps to change, and so your attempted mental change will fall flat. I’m referring to physical change as things such as habits, actions, and routines.
A new environment will inevitably prompt new habits. By being aware of this process, you can use it to your advantage.
I’d recommend deciding on your new habits and routines after living in the new space for a day or two. That will give you some time to adjust and to learn what’s most applicable for that environment.
Habits are the most important thing to consider here because they make up the core of your routines. Habits will alter your actions.
For Example
A great personal example is with waking up. Before moving, I struggled to wake up to an alarm; often I’d turn the alarm off and get back into bed to snooze for an hour. But now, with a new environment, I know the importance of establishing an early rise habit.
Although it will be difficult the first few days, there’s a part of me that pushes me to not go back to sleep. For the first time in months, I actually woke up to an alarm the past few days and didn’t snooze!
This habit, in particular, is a good example because waking up early changes my actions and routines for the rest of the day. I know that if I wake up early, I’m more likely to begin the day with work. Which, in turn, will generate productive momentum which I can surf throughout the rest of the day.
After enough repetition of a habit and the following actions, it will become normal. My actions of working are supportive of my desired mindset, which means I’m better able to shift.
Other things to consider include new morning and evening routines. These are important supports for your daily progress and habits.
Without a proper start to the day, you’ll be unmotivated to make progress or change. Without a proper end to the day, you won’t be getting enough or proper sleep, which will damage the following day.
Routines are in essence a series of habits. Practice being conscious of how you spend the half-hour before and after sleeping. As a result, you’ll soon be able to see what needs changing and how you can change it.
Action-Implementation Plan
By now, you should have decided on habits supportive of your desired mindset. Now you can create an action-implementation plan.
Remember that it’s difficult to form more than one habit at a time. Each habit takes an average of 66 days to form; don’t overload yourself by trying to form several habits at once. Limit yourself to two habits at once at most.
To help with this, decide which habit is most important to your desired mindset. For me, this is waking up early. The knock-on effects have a bigger impact than another habit, such as daily reading.
The more detailed your plan, the better. At the very least, think about the habit loop – Cue, Routine, Reward – and what each part of your chosen habit is. For myself, that would be:
Cue – Alarm goes off
Routine – Getting up, turning my alarm off, not going back to sleep
Reward – Awake early, able to be productive, starting the day with a win.
Other parts of your plan could include:
- When you will run the habit
- What the biggest obstacles you will face are
- How you can overcome those obstacles
- Ways you can make the habit easier.
Make the habit as easy as possible, as the easier the habit is to complete, the more likely you are to do it.
If-Then Implementation Plan
Throughout the process of forming a habit, you’ll experience obstacles. To help overcome these, create an if-then implementation plan. This will help you to follow through with commitments.
The formula for this is as follows:
If (obstacle encountered) then (solution)
First, list out all possible obstacles. Now plan what you’ll do to overcome these obstacles. That’s it. All you have to do is write it in the above formula.
For example, your habit might be exercising each morning. Your first obstacle might be waking up late and not having time to work. Your solution might be to exercise when you get home for work and to head to bed earlier tonight. Your If-Then plan becomes:
If I wake up late for work, then I’ll exercise after work and go to bed earlier tonight.
Or
If it’s raining when I wake up, then I’ll do a home-workout instead.
Creating an if-then implementation plan can help you to follow through with your habits. The more obstacles you can plan for, the more likely you are to stick with the habit. In any given situation, if you have an if-then plan, you’ll know exactly what to do.
Thanks for reading.
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