Behavior Change Happens Slowly, And That’s OK

I am a bit of a planner junkie. Maybe it’s the Virgo in me, or my oldest daughter mindset, but I just love a crisp, new planner.

Every December, I look forward to the ritual of selecting and ordering my next year’s planner. When I started my self-created sabbatical last year, one of the first things I did was buy a planner to help me organize my now copious amounts of free time. Planners are a love language to me, what can I say?

Over the years, I’ve tried planners that include habit trackers. One year, I bought a planner that had the habit tracker organized like a beautiful wheel, with space for 7 habits. Another year, I bought cute habit sticky notes that you can add into your planner weekly and had space for up to 10 habits. Yet another year I printed out a habit tracker that had a full-page’s worth of space for things to track.

What I inevitably found with each of these habit trackers was that after a few days, I would only have one or two habits that I could consistently check off, fill in, or stamp. Each time, I’d get down on myself, feeling like I lacked discipline and just couldn’t stick to things.

And then I would remember my behavioral training: behavior changes (which is essentially what most habits are) take time and energy to implement. Which is why focusing on a limited number of changes at once (say, 1-2) is the best way to get them to actually stick.

I consider myself a behaviorist at heart - behavior, being how we react to stimuli in our environment, is endlessly fascinating to me. I know, from years of working with people on behavior, that we have a limited amount of energy daily to put toward modifying our behavior. When that energy is spent, it’s spent until it gets recharged (usually by a good night’s sleep or some de-stressing techniques). We put that energy every day toward making small modifications in our behavior, often times without realizing it: keeping ourselves from eating another starburst, responding to the surly barista with grace instead of attitude, speaking calmly instead of screaming when our child tells us they’ve decided to use the blue marker to improve the picture on the throw pillow. So in reality, the amount of energy we have left over in the behavior modification bucket to put actively toward new habits is often less than we realize.

This is why I say let’s take this start of a new month and focus on ONE behavioral change instead of 5+ (as we are all want to do). Pacing ourselves with our changes means we are not only creating momentum but also respecting that this behavior shift is one piece of the many ways we draw on our energy during a day. We do not have limitless energy to foster change within ourselves, so we shouldn’t pretend that we do.

Today, as you think about starting this month, choose that one thing to focus on and give it all you can - life, outside of this change, is so dynamic and unpredictable. Set yourself up for success and show yourself compassion by slowly AND with intention toward your goals. Your energy reserves will thank you.

Check out this week’s Monday Morning Pep Talk for more on setting yourself up for a great month.

Go shine your light, my friends -