True personal growth ultimately will lead to fulfillment, and it's my intention with these podcasts to connect more deeply with you. Thank you for joining me and Corbin and my guests, and welcome to this episode. Why is change generally considered difficult? Why as a whole industry grown up around change management?
Thinking back to when I was an employee, I recall numerous changes big and small that were thrust upon us, at least it felt like that, thrust upon us by the management of whatever business and there was invariably quite a bit of grumbling, if not outright resistance to the new policy no matter what it was. And change always seemed to be a bad thing, a nuisance, something that required extra work. That was until we became accustomed to it and it became a new habit.
In most cases, that's all that was ever required. Embracing and becoming comfortable with a new habit. Because as humans, we are creatures of habit. Most of us get ready in the morning on a sort of autopilot. We do the same thing every day and we do it efficiently because we don't have to think about anything, we're just repeating a pattern. Many choose their outfits the night before and that saves decision making time in the critical morning time allowance.
Steve Jobs famously wore blue jeans and a black t shirt every single day because he maintained he was much too busy to give any thought at all to his appearance. Of course, men can get away with that. It's much harder if you're a woman. Habit can be good or bad. Some routines are healthy.
Many entrepreneurs, for example, start the day at 5 AM with a power hour, which could be for example, 20 minutes of exercise followed by 20 minutes of meditation, and then 20 minutes of reading or journaling or something like that. Okay. You don't have to start at 5 AM, but many find it a good time to snatch an hour for themselves before the rest of the family starts waking up. Obviously, there are other ways to fit exercise and meditation into your day.
And incidentally, if you aren't doing either of those things, both are habits worth cultivating, and the best way to fit them into your day is to choose a time or times for each of them and stick with the same time daily until suddenly you notice that your new habit has just fitted seamlessly into your current lifestyle. And folks who struggle to quit smoking, for example, find one of the hardest questions to answer is, well, what will I do with my hands? And so they take up vaping.
Others replace the smoking habit with snacking, which is damaging in a different way. Because usually they're snacking on sweet or salty snacks, which are full of preservatives or calories or both. And then their body shapes can change significantly before they even realize or recognize the effects that the substitute bad habit has, wrought on them. Significantly fewer people smoke now than in the past. That was because the governments stepped in to stop it happening.
Measures became more and more draconian as it became obvious that people would carry on buying cigarettes no matter what the cost. And despite the graphic warnings about cancer and so on displayed on the packaging, smokers were not persuaded to quit. Personally, I believe that nothing would have changed if smoking in public spaces had not been declared illegal. Although it's almost killed off a whole industry and of course I am referring to the good old British pub.
Successive governments were intent upon removing this particular choice from the British public. And as Brits, basically, we are so compliant. From memory, I think the smoking ban might well have been applied throughout the EU. That was in the mid 2000.
I think it started here in 2,006, but I was on one of the Greek islands in 08 on a package holiday with a load of other Brits, and we found it hilarious that the locals would brazenly sit smoking right under big no smoking signs in the cafes and so on, and many of our number were more than happy to join in. Opinion varies on this, but it takes 6 weeks or so to break a habit. And it's usually the bad ones that we're wanting to break. But it only takes about 3 weeks to install a good habit.
Now there is a hack to understanding how habits are broken and or installed. And when you're aware of the three levels of commitment involved, it can make the whole process a lot less mysterious and less of a challenge. And yes, some of us say we have plenty of willpower, many don't, but if your particular bad habit was being used to manage stress for example, you might find these three levels very useful to know about. So level 1 is the cognitive level.
At this level you understand the reasons for the change of behavior that's required. You appreciate that smoking, say, is bad for your lungs and your health generally, or that going to the gym consistently is the only way to change your body shape. And so you apply this sensible thinking, this level of understanding to the habit that you are trying to well the habit that you're working on.
And if you manage to bring about change with just that level of information, well done, because for most people the change doesn't last. Level 2 is the emotional level. Now when the emotions are involved you are much more likely to buy into the change of behavior. For example, your child comes home from school telling you how some lesson they've just had has terrified her about the perils of smoking, and she doesn't want you to die.
Or she's on about the dangers of using roundup as a weed killer because of all the all the knock on effects and, yes, actually, we should bear that in mind. But usually the kids get very, very, well, bought into these teachings. It's the way their brains work. Or maybe your doctor has told you to quit drinking or you only have 6 months left.
All sorts of frightening consequences help greatly to put well, I mean well, to activate the emotions and then we're much more likely to put lots of effort into at least getting started with the new behavior and sticking with it for a while. But as the intensity of the emotion diminishes as it does over time, then it's very easy to slip back into the old behavior. Because remember the 6 week rule, it takes about 6 weeks to lose an old habit. So you are fighting something very powerful.
But level 3 is the level to aim for. Because if you work on your identity as well as the new behavior, you will have a massively higher success rate. For example, you identify now as a non smoker. Somebody offers you a cigarette and you can say with conviction, oh no thanks I don't smoke. As opposed to I've given up or worse still I'm trying to quit the habit. Because then maybe with, sympathy driving their behavior, they'll have you smoking again in no time.
AA, alcoholics anonymous has been enormously successful in helping alcoholics to quit their habit by applying a very famous 12 step system. The the people involved will now identify as recovering alcoholics, and they accept that that's the goal in itself to remain a recovering alcoholic.
Because apparently once you're an alcoholic, you are an alcoholic for life and that's why these poor folks can't have even a single drink because that's the slippery slope and they are right into the old drinking habit, we're told, as soon as they've had even a small glass of champagne at a wedding for example. Or just say you get so excited by the endorphins that exercise releases. These are the feel good chemicals in your bloodstream.
You're feeling so good after the exercise that you would, you'd feel positively deprived without your daily run or your fix at the gym because you're now identifying as a gym bunny or a runner or who knows even a fitness freak.
So just to repeat the three levels of, identity hacking, there's the cognitive level where you understand it's a good idea, there's the emotional level where a lot more of you buys into the fact that change is a necessary idea, but it's the identity level that is much more likely to keep you on the straight and narrow required to maintain your new habit. And while on the subject of change, my students ask me from time to time why I call myself a transformational coach.
Is there actually a difference between change and transformation? Oh yes, there's a big difference. Transformation is lasting change. Weight watchers, that very famous dieting club, they have an enormous but short term success rate with their clients. My mom became a gold star member after she lost 10% of her body weight and then a bit more. And she was awarded lifetime membership. In other words, she could show up for free at any of their meetings.
And it was international, and she looked fabulous, and obviously she wanted to stay with her new look. But life gets in the way. My parents moved house. There wasn't a handy weight watchers meeting in the new place. Mom intended to keep up these healthy eating plans, but she slipped back into those old habits all too easily.
And I'm not talking about serious unhealthy eating, I just mean instead of weighing the ingredients and specifically buying healthy foods and absolutely steering clear of the odd snack, well, before much time had passed, she was pretty well back into her old habits and her old shape. And that's the problem with weight watchers, and they acknowledge it. They can't and don't promise lasting change.
Maybe they don't know about the identity hack, or what's more likely, practical psychology of this nature doesn't fit their business model. They want lifetime customers. Just like big pharma aren't interested in curing patients. That's a terrible business model. They want a nation full of pill addicts who are being maintained in poor health by drugs that are poisons in themselves.
And the food industry has us addicted to ice cream and countless products containing fat and sugar in the same item, but I I won't go into any detail on that now. I would just say think about installing healthier eating habits by using the identity hack and also by substituting things like carrot sticks and hummus instead of a packet of crisps or some fresh fruit instead of reaching for a carton of orange juice.
All sorts of mini hacks like that fit into the idea I am a healthy eater and I think that the identity level could be remarkably useful as you focus on installing new habits. You can set yourself up to win the game of life. Become familiar with the laws of the universe. You have infinite potential. You can influence reality. Quantum growth and connection explores success strategies, power principles, relationship rescue, and the quantum field.