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!
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