I am leading 10-week programs, called ‘Alive with Work‘. Professionals sign up to have major breakthrough in the area of their work.
A typical 10 week cycle goes like this:
Week 1-3 Reserved/Enthusiasm/Curiosity
Week 4-5 Things change/The program seems to be working
Week 6-7 This is WORK! I don’t want to work for a better life…I can’t do it now, too much going on…
Week 8-10 Back on track. One step at a time.
It’s nothing new, that we have a resistance to change.
Benjamin_Franklin_by_Jean-Baptiste_Greuze
Here is what Benjamin Franklin has to say to that (excerpts from the book: The happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt):
While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct”.
He was a natural coach. Check out what he did in order to form habits (and by the way: did he invent the first spreadsheet?):
“…so he devised a training regimen. He wrote out a list of thirteen virtues, each linked to specific behaviors that he should or should not do. (For example: “Temperance: Eat not to dullness…”; “Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself”; “Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring…”). He then printed for himself a table with seven columns (one for each day of the week) and thirteen rows (one for each virtue), and he put a black spot in the appropriate square each time he failed to live a whole day in accordance with a particular virtue. He concentrated on only one virtue per week, hoping to keep its row clear of spots while paying no special attention to the other virtues, though he filled in their rows whenever violations occurred. Over thirteen weeks he worked through the whole table. Then he repeated the process, finding that with repetition, the table got less and less spotty.”
If Benjamin could do it, you can do it!