How to Change Something About Yourself - Sivan
11.13.20

How to Change Something about yourself

In general, I’m very happy with who I am. I think I’m a good person, mom, friend, boss, sister, daughter, etc. but that’s not to say I’m not always trying to improve. Because I am and will always be. So far this year, I’ve wanted to become a better manager and get back into a workout routine, among other personal changes. And because I’m following my plan below, I’m feeling good about my progress so far!

+ QUESTION YOUR WHY

Before you think you need to change something about yourself because someone told you to or society tells you to, question it. This sounds very hippy of me but I believe in self-awareness and spending time with yourself. Here are a few specific questions:

+ Why do I want to make this change?

+ If I made the change, how would it better my life? (If you can’t find good reasonings here, you might not actually need to make this change.)

+ What would happen if I didn’t make this change?

+ Am I doing this for myself or others? If others, do I care enough to do it for them?

+ FIND MOTIVATION

I’m a big believer in visual motivation. It’s why I post so many quotes and follow who I follow on social media. I’m always trying to better myself and find that those are two things that keep me in check.

Make sure that you’re finding your own sort of motivation. For some people, that might mean posting updates on Facebook or texting a friend (outside motivation). For others, personal check-in’s might be enough (internal motivation). But I will say for most of us, a good Pinterest session doesn’t hurt when getting started. Follow my inspo boards here.

+ GET SPECIFIC

One of the changes I wanted to make this year was to become a better manager / get my teams more organized. Even though our team is small, it felt like I was having to answer a million unnecessary questions a day and that information for the businesses lived within a million emails. It wasn’t efficient for my team or my life. I ended up getting my team into a project management system (Asana) and things are much better.

The point being, you have to get specific about how you’ll make that change. Instead of saying, “I want to be more organized,” list out exactly what that looks like. List out specific tasks you need to do to make that change and then…

+ START SMALL

As with any change of habit, I like to start small. If I want to exercise more, I add in one extra workout a week until I feel good about my routine. If I want to be less bitchy over texts, I wait a few minutes before responding since that usually helps. Sometimes I can’t help it LOL.

Don’t feel like you have to change overnight; it’s not realistic. Figure out what you need to do to get from Point A to point B, not A to Z in a day.

+ CHECK-IN

If you’re in the mindset of making a change, set an alarm to go off 1x a week. Set the alarm for a time when you can actually sit your ass down and see your results, how you’re feeling, if you need to get back on track, set yourself up for success, etc. For me, a weekday afternoon is good. That way I’ve put out any work fires but I’m not yet exhausted and won’t skip it.

Keep this check-in system in place until you confidentially feel like you’ve made the change, then move it to 1x a month so that it sticks.

What’s one thing you’d change about yourself?