Don’t Keep Flying Into the Glass

“If you run into a wall and pretend it doesn’t exist, you’ll never make any progress.”  — Sorachi Hideaki

Things aren’t going well and you can’t figure out why. You are unhappy with your job, finances, bad habits, or relationship. You think about what you don’t like constantly and promise yourself to do better. Then, you go back to doing the same thing and make no changes. There is only one way to change: stop flying into the glass.

We have all seen videos of people (or animals) running into glass. The next course of action might seem apparent – do anything except hit the glass again. Yet, we can all point to instances in our lives where we kept flying into the glass despite the desire not to. People are reluctant to change. Once set, values are relatively stable during the lifespan from adulthood¹. They can be changed, but it takes time and perseverance. Bad habits are also hard to quit. About 70% of smokers say they would like to quit, yet have not². They can’t study every bad habit out there, but we would guess this stat carries across to most of them.

Change is not easy. There is no such thing as 21 days to form a habit³. It takes time and work. The first step is finding what and why you want to change. When you find yourself falling back into that behavior or scenario, ask yourself when, where, and with whom it happens, and how you are feeling⁴. Finally, and the hardest part, is to consciously implement the change you want. Be forgiving of setbacks and keep your focus on the goal.

Action: Pick something you want to change. Understand why, form a plan, then implement.

Further Reading:

1. Changing Personal Values through Value-Manipulation Tasks: A Systematic Literature Review Based on Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Human Values
2. Breaking Bad Habits – Why It’s So Hard to Change
3. What Does It Really Take to Build a New Habit?
4. How to break a bad habit