Written by: Martina Hrubes-Rios, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Reasons and Tips on how to unstuck yourself and get going with momentum!
What Is Holding You Back from creating Lasting Change?
Change is the only certain constant. Without change, there would be no evolution, but most people resist change until they have no other option. Why is that?
Our brains get hard wired over the years, which determines our habits and behaviours including how we see ourselves in this world. It also has the tendency to keep us stuck in our comfort zone. That is because we have an “error alert system” that sees new experiences as a threat, causing anxiety and fear in an attempt at stopping us from moving forward. Our brain stores information (imagine a box) by allocating it to what it knows, so if it doesn’t know how to store a new experience, because it is new, it gets confused and can create panic.
This is a process of how we learn new skills and store memories, learning gets associated with memories, however as we get older, we build up our storage box of what we know, and thus this becomes the programming.
The good news is that if you want to create change and are willing to commit to the process you can overwrite the computer program with a new story, new belief systems and a new identity.
Read on for more tips and steps on how to take steps to move forward.
1. Getting Clear! Purpose driven motivation will create commitment.
TIP: In order to be committed and motivated to take the essential steps towards change you need to get clear first on what your goal is. Is it really what you want or is it something that you think you want? Don’t go chasing other people’s dreams or get confused with other people’s expectations of how you should live your life.
Instead ask yourself, what is the purpose of this goal? Why do you want it? What will happen if you don’t take the steps towards it? Is your pain point or your reason big enough? Purpose-driven motivation is the most forceful type of motivation.
Imagine this: Your new goal is the holiday destination you want to get to, your couch at home is your comfort zone and your purpose-driven motivation is the vehicle to get you to those sunset cocktails.
2. Mindset is everything!
You may have heard this many times! Yes, having the “Right Mindset” is absolutely everything that makes the difference between those that are high achievers and those that stay stuck in their life ruts complaining. With a limited mindset, you literally limit your life experience and possibilities to what could be. Your fears keep you stuck in your walls of where you are and how you perceive yourself. You follow others instead of taking the lead. You live life by what happens to you instead of taking accountability and choose.
Building a Growth Mindset is the basis for overcoming fear of judgement or failure, it is the tool to get you through times of discomfort, overwhelm or when feeling lack of confidence. It takes practice to shift your mindset like a muscle that needs to be trained.
Tip: Build your own strategy of how you will get there. Assess your level of Growth Mindset and be honest about what fears, challenges could hold you back. Knowing yourself, your habits and daily routines, helps you to prepare your mindset for how you will overcome certain situations and what habits have to be changed in order to achieve your goal.
Developing a Mindset of Success & Leadership means to become highly self-aware, changing your perspective of how you see yourself or a situation and ultimately take aligned actions.
3. EQ is more important than IQ
When it comes to determining a person’s long-term success, researchers have recognised that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) outperforms Intellectual Intelligence (IQ). People with high level of EQ are aware of their own moods, emotions, and motives and able to manage or redirect them and their behaviour. This also requires your ability to be flexible, think before reacting, be open to change, and know how your emotions affect others. To achieve your goals successfully you will have to be flexible in its approach.
Psychological Flexibility is the Superpower of Mental Health and Wellbeing and people that are psychologically flexible are skilled at taking on feedback and perspectives from others and recognising when their approach to solving a problem needs to be changed. They know that by changing their actions, they are likely to get different results, so they are flexible in their approach to achieving what they want in life.
Tip: Surrender to the process of change, accept that you may make mistakes that on the other hand will build up your knowledge and help you master your strategy and actions. Don’t get hang up on the detail of how you will achieve your goal, be flexible to adapt and make changes to the process. Sometimes it feels like going 2 steps back before making a new step forward, but all of this is part of the learning and growth process to build your competence. Stay focused on the big picture and most importantly enjoy the journey of learning and getting closer to your goal.
4. Competence builds Confidence
Nothing starts until you get clear and commit towards achieving your goal. What often follows straight after is self-doubt in your own abilities to achieve what you set yourself to do. Maybe your inner critique is telling you that you don’t have the skillsets or just not enough time. Possibly your old stories about how you perceive yourself are impacting your self-esteem or you surround yourself by people that are not able to mentally support you on your journey and you start doubting your decision. Remember it is the brains alarm system wanting to stay in the known. Expansions happen outside of the comfort zone, and it takes courage because you must act before you’ve acquired the capability to achieve the result. Capability is created because of your commitment and courage. And confidence is the result of these three stages.
Tip: Confidence based on action is build by becoming competent. It is called the Confidence- Competency Loop.
First, we try, and succeed to learn, then we build skills through repetition until we feel competent enough and consequently more confident, just like how we learned to drive a car or bicycle. Now that your self-esteem is higher, you will also realise that everyone who has mastered a skill had to go through the same process. It is grit, the perseverance and passion to achieve long-term goals.
5. How to make time for your goals.
Time Management seems to be one of the biggest stressors and hurdles in creating change. We excuse ourselves constantly by saying “I don’t have enough time” or “I’m just too busy”, busy with what? That is bogus, it comes down to your priorities not having enough time, it is about how you are spending your time.
Are you chasing urgent stuff all day long or are you clear on what is important? Are you pushing something important aside because it is boring or scary?
Are you walking the talk and holding yourself accountable to what you say you do?
Tip. The key lays in effective planning, planning your week and days ahead. Going to bed with intention of tomorrow, preparing your environment and mind for what you want to achieve the next day. Getting up with clarity and focus on those aligned actions will help you to stop wasting time on the “not-so-important”.
Assess where you are wasting time during the day and replace it with what aligns with your goal.
Take momentum and say no to what is not serving your goal for a little while.
Don’t try to do too much at once, take small steps, plan for milestones, and celebrate those! It is very important to celebrate in-between achievements. Share your goals and achievements with others, it boosts your own accountability, and it might even inspire others to take action and create change.
And just in case if all the above doesn’t work for you, remember this statement:
“Any action is better than inaction”
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Martina Hrubes-Rios, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Martina specializes in Transformative Life Coaching working with tools and practices that help shifting one’s mindset, empowering her clients to live a happier and more fulfilled life. As a Life Story Coach, she helps her clients reach their higher potential by rewriting the persistent life stories that keep them stuck or playing out the same life script repeatedly. Besides Individual Coaching, she offers a monthly online coaching Bootcamp called: “Rewrite your Life Movie.”
