What Keeps People from Making Positive Changes in Life? With 3 Essential Beliefs | by Tom Schweickert

Person with briefcase on road with START written on there

According to professional speaker and author, Tony Robbins (yep, he of the infamous firewalk), it's the getting ready to change that takes time.

In the end there's a single instant when each change occurs. And Tony Robbins goes on to outline 3 specific beliefs that you must have in order to instantly create a lasting change. See what you think below.

3 Beliefs to Help People Make Positive Changes in their Lives

Belief #1:  Something must change

Do you "sort of" want to get into shape, or do you "absolutely have to" lose the weight? Does dropping a few pounds sound "nice", or is living another day in your current body "unbearable"?

In order to make a lasting change you must be convinced that the time has come. Something MUST change.

Belief #2:  I must change it.

It's vital that you take full responsibility in making the change. Sure, others may assist you, but in the end you're the one who has to make it happen.

You have to want this change enough to make it your personal mission—no-one else will do it for you.

Belief #3: I can change it.

It's important not to let past failures get in your way. The truth is that you can do amazing things when you put your mind to it.

You must believe you're capable of losing weight or making any other positive change in your life.

So why do most people fail to make lasting change?

Because they leave it up to willpower.

Willpower works for a while, but without the 3 beliefs above, you'll always revert back to what's easy.

The solution? Change what you're comfortable with.

Another helpful idea: switch around your pain/pleasure motivations

You've probably heard that humans are motivated by two things:

  1. To avoid pain
  2. To gain pleasure

So when you want to change a behavior pattern the key is to associate your pain with the behavior you don't want and connect pleasure with the behavior you do want.

An example: You know you want to lose weight. You know you need to quit eating comfort food late at night and that you need to start exercising on a regular basis. Up until this point your brain is trained to associate pleasure with eating comfort food late at night and to associate pain with exercise.

It's time to retrain your brain to feel good about exercise and to feel bad about eating late at night. How?

  • Think about all of the negative things about being overweight and connect these unpleasant thoughts to your late night snack.
  • Now think about all of the wonderful things about being in shape and connect these pleasant thoughts to exercise.

Remember, change can happen in an instant!

Switching around your pain/pleasure motivations combined with the 3 beliefs is going to make a huge difference when people want to make changes in their lives.

We're all capable of making big changes in our lives.

Enjoy!

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Tom Schweikert

Contributing Author:

Tom Schweickert brings a unique combination as a Life Coach, Personal Trainer and Money Coach to help people negotiate these interesting times. Connect with Tom here on his Tax Directions website. As a coach and personal trainer, I believe in my clients - and in turn, they believe in themselves. This helps awaken the Warrior Within!

Learn more about Tom & see all their articles here >>

Image of Man running down road with briefcase by alphaspirit via Shutterstock

One Comment

  1. Thomas Nexø

    If Freud just knew how much influence he's had on the way we think today with his pleasure-pain principle. But it 100% holds true!

    Reply

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