Have you ever gone through a process of changing habit or behavior, only to find yourself at the same spot a few days/weeks/months later?

Maybe you just labelled it as: it doesn’t work.

Here is the thing — most people approach habit forming from the wrong starting point.

Most of us know that if you are not experiencing the results you want in an area of your life, you will want to adopt different behaviors and habits in order to produce different results.

Now that’s easy….

…to say.

“Exercise, stop working after hours, plan your week, don’t procrastinate, establish a routine, blah, blah, blah….

If knowing what behavior to adopt was enough to change your life, then you wouldn’t be reading this. With all the content, books, podcasts out there, there is more than enough advice to change the world, twice. But knowing what to do is not the way to transformation.

There I said it.

First, knowing is not enough.

Second, starting with the behavior is not the right approach to sustainable change.

WHY?

Because the behavior is a consequence, not a cause.

WAIT, WHAT?

Let’s look into this:

First, we have our personal Truth i.e. how we see the world and what we believe to be true about ourselves, others, and the world.

Second, we generate thoughts based on our personal Truth.

Third, a thought leads us to feel an emotion (most of the time about what we make the thought mean).

Fourth, we take action/behave according to our feeling.

Finally, we create a result based on the action we took.

When we want to change our results, we will want to change our behavior. But the way to SUSTAINABLE behavior change is by going up the chain and working with the cause — our personal Truth (our beliefs) and our thoughts.

Different results will require different thoughts.

So, what is the first step to sustainable habit and behavior change?

Start getting to know yourself and your thoughts. Intimately.

Know what you are telling yourself. Observe your thoughts, perceptions and assumptions objectively. Notice how your body is communicating with you.

Daily.

A simple practice that will tell you much information about where your current habits come from, what thoughts are serving you or not, and where you may be blocking the transformation process. Without this knowledge, you are spinning your wheel.

It’s free, simple, easy, it takes a few minutes…and nobody else can do it for you.

You can only change the thing that you know about. From there, you can apply so many strategies leading you to your dreams.

Knowing yourself first is the way to building a solid foundation to your transformation.

With truckloads of love,

Geneviève Pépin

Productivity Coach