Stop Doing This One Thing If You Want to Create New Habits

Photo by Cameron Venti on Unsplash

You don’t need me to tell you that creating habits is hard. We’ve all been there. Whether we’ve tried to start a writing practice, get into shape, or wake up earlier, we all know what it feels like to fail to achieve something we want.

We hate failure almost as much as we hate being stuck where we are. But, what can we do about it?

Change, like most things, is a skill. Nobody is born good at changing. It’s learned.

If it seems like someone you know changed easily, I’d be suspicious of their motives. Most people use the power of self-hatred to propel themselves forward. This might work for a time, but it’s not sustainable. Be warned: self-hate doesn’t suddenly turn into self-love once you’ve achieved your goals. Self-hate ends up consuming you, and it will inevitably make you miserable.

The problem is, we’re taught to be super hard on ourselves. As we grew up, we watched our parents do it, our siblings do it, our friends do it. Virtually every human who has ever made a mistake in front of us has berated themselves for it. All these experiences solidified this terrible strategy in our minds.

This old-school perspective has got to go.

To create a change mindset, we need to adjust our expectations. So that when we…