The blog

For those of us who wish to refine how we work so that we get a smoother work­day, it is a true priv­i­lege that the oppor­tu­ni­ty to try new things arise so often. Every day — well, even sev­er­al times a day — we have the pos­si­bil­i­ty to choose doing some­thing in a new, more struc­tured man­ner instead of falling back into old habits that have caused us more pain than gain.

Start often
It is there­fore easy to begin chang­ing our habits. How­ev­er, it is just as easy to fall back into old tracks — either soon after start­ing fresh or after hav­ing act­ed accord­ing to the new way for quite a while. Luck­i­ly, it is also easy to start over after falling off the wag­on, and go at it again, doing the new thing we wish to make into a habit. And we can do this often. In fact, the more often we start over, and over, the eas­i­er it will be to adopt the new habit that will make life and work flow smoother.

Pre­dict­ing the future is difficult
But some of us tend to give up after fail­ing to stick to our plan. We give up because we are dis­ap­point­ed in our­selves or we come to the con­clu­sion that we will not be suc­cess­ful in the future only because we were not suc­cess­ful right now. That’s a bit rash and harsh, wouldn’t you say? Today’s fail­ure does not deter­mine the out­come of tomorrow’s efforts.

At it again
If we refrain from con­clud­ing that we are doomed to per­pet­u­al fail­ure and instead alter the habit we wish to estab­lish slight­ly, we are ready to have anoth­er go. You might still fail this time as well, but we can always make more adjust­ments and start over — every time.

Do this

1. Choose a habit con­cern­ing your struc­ture that you have fall­en out of sync with and have want­ed to try again for a while now, yet you have not been able to suc­cess­ful­ly reestab­lish it.


2. Ask your­self when you think the next oppor­tu­ni­ty to begin or prac­tice the habit will be?


3. Agree with your­self that you will begin apply­ing the habit at this time.


4. Make at least one small improve­ment or alter­na­tion to the habit or action, mean­ing do some­thing dif­fer­ent this time com­pared to how you last did it, some­thing you believe will make it eas­i­er to sus­tain the habit.


5. Think of a way to remind your­self of when you will recom­mence the habit. Paste a note, set a reminder or do some­thing else that makes you aware that the time for begin­ning again has come.

Eas­i­er to change if we start over often
When you take advan­tage of the fact that it is easy to start over often, it will become eas­i­er to cre­ate last­ing change and improve your work­ing meth­ods. You prac­tice chang­ing habits, which is a tremen­dous impor­tant skill for any­one liv­ing in a soci­ety and envi­ron­ment that under­goes con­tin­u­ous, swift and sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment. Resilience is a true asset.

How do you man­age to change?
How do you make it eas­i­er for your­self to estab­lish a habit you wish to adopt? Do you have any aids, tools or tricks you find use­ful? Feel free to share in a comment.