Welcome to week 8! We are doing our 90-Day Goal Together and are now on day 50. If you are going strong and on track, then congratulations!
If you are struggling and need some encouragement then you are in the right place. Regardless, all of us can benefit from tips about how to direct our behaviors where they will pay off for us. A 90-Day Goal is in one way or another a behavior change. Sometimes that is easy and sometimes it is really hard. Behaviors are at the root of all change.
Chip Heath and Dan Heath in their book, Switch, provide a very helpful framework for understanding how to change our behaviors so, in this case, we will crush our 90-Day Goal. We all respond to life differently and therefore what influences our behavior changes will be unique to each one of us. The framework provided by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, however, is useful to all of us to gain insight into how to modify our behaviors.
Tip 50: Switch Smart
The framework is this: The Rider, The Elephant, and the Path.
The authors describe it this way: Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control.
The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.
The rider represents our rational self. The elephant represents our emotional self. And the path represents our environment or context. Each of these plays a role in our pursuit of our 90 Day Goal. When we are aware of the tension between the rider and elephant, the rational and emotional part of ourselves, then we can be more successful in overcoming barriers to change and reaching our goals.
The rest of this week we will continue to visit this framework with more tips on how to successfully switch.
Please send me your questions, challenges, and suggestions as we continue in the 90-Day Goal Together. I look forward to hearing from you and sharing the journey with you.
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