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3 ways to make creating change easier

3 ways to make creating change easierCreating change can feel hard. The reasons can be many and vary from person to person.

But often, we are doing things that contribute to making it feel harder than it needs to, without even realising it.

Being aware of what some of those things are can help you to be proactive with dealing with them so you can make creating change easier and smoother.

To help you get started with that, here are:

3 ways to make creating change easier

1. Mindset

What you think about a situation or circumstance determines how you experience it.

That is because what you think about a situation triggers specific feelings. In turn, your feelings drive your behaviour and your behaviour drives your outcome.

So, your mindset cycle and thought patterns can determine, not only how hard or easy the change you are working on feels, but also whether you achieve it or not.

A useful way to create awareness on if your mindset is making change feel harder than it needs to be is to get curious about your thought patterns and the impact they are having on how hard creating change feels.

Examine what your thoughts are and what you are telling yourself about the situation. Are they proactive, positive and solution focussed? Or are they negative, problem focussed or fear based?

Those two different types of mindset cycles can give totally different experiences and outcomes to how hard or easy creating change feels.

An interesting research based book to read on this subject is Mindset by Carol Dweck.

2. Habits

Habits drive your behaviour. And your behaviour drives how hard or easy something feels.

If you are finding creating change hard, it might be that you have deeply ingrained habits that are contributing to that.

Take an objective look at what impact your habits have on creating the change you want to achieve.

For example, say the change you want to achieve is to improve your personal effectiveness to achieve your goals easier and faster. But you have a deeply ingrained habit of wasting time binge watching TV, messing about on Facebook or playing on your phone.

Those habits are going to make the change you want to create feel way harder than it needs to be. They could even stop you achieving your desired results at all.

Examine what habits would make the change you want to create feel easier and less of a hard push. Take action to start fostering those habits so they make the path of change smoother to navigate.

An interesting research based book to read on the topic of habits is The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business by Charles Duhigg.

3. Focus on the next steps rather than everything at once.

There can be so many things to do to achieve a specific change that it can feel overwhelming and stressful. Constantly thinking about all those things can make it feel harder than it needs to be.

Once you have decided to pursue a specific change it feels way easier to achieve if you focus on taking a step-by-step approach.

Breaking your project down into small chunks and then just focussing on the next small step makes the whole process feel way easier and more doable.

An interesting book to read on this topic is The One Thing by Gary Keller.

The bottom line is this:

Whether creating a specific change feels hard or not can be driven, to a large extent, by your mindset, habits, behaviour and approach.

Ask yourself these three self-audit questions:

  1. What am I doing or thinking that is contributing to this change feeling hard?
  2. What would make this process feel easier and smoother?
  3. Who do I need to be to navigate the path of change successfully?

Combine your answers to these three questions with the three focus areas outlined above to identify proactive action you can take so that creating change feel an easier and smoother path to navigate.

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  • Hi Ali,
    I have always resisted change, more than other people, I feel. I always thought it was my horoscope sign– I’m a Taurus. I think I once heard that about the Taurus. My dad used to tell me to roll with the punches. Change and I are still not friends.

  • Janice, resistence to change is common. However, we have a choice whether we will settle for that resistence and the consequences of that choice, or if we will find a way to overcome that resistence to create change. There is always choice!

  • Marie Mack

    I love your last piece of advice. I have found that my goals seem much more attainable when I break them down into small steps to tackle one by one, rather than viewing it as one big task to accomplish right now.

  • Marie, that one approach has so many benefits on so many different levels. Not only does it help with building momentum and staying on the path of progress, but it also reduces overwhelm and makes the whole process more manageable and enjoyable too.

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