Don’t change the behaviour, change the story | Weekly Wisdom

Don’t change the behaviour, change the story and the behaviour will naturally change…

I was doing my 1:1 coaching call with my mentor Jim Fortin last week and we were talking about subconscious programming. 

Jim says the subconscious always wins. You can change the behaviour, but the thing you actually need to change is the stories that make up your life.

Prime example: If you’re a smoker and you decide that it is time for a change. “It’s time to stop smoking and get my life back on track”

If you just change the behaviour and remove the smokes, guess what? You’re still a smoker deep down.

When someone asks you if you’re a smoker what would you say? You’d probably say something along the lines of “I am but I’m trying to get off them at the moment. I’m 24 days smoke free!”

The problem here is you still identify as a smoker. The subconscious doesn’t know the difference between a true or false story. All it knows is that the story you are telling yourself is that you are still a smoker.

Whereas if you were to ask a non-smoker if they smoke, they would probably say something along the lines of “No I don’t smoke”

So ultimately, if you want to BEcome a non-smoker you need to BE the non-smoker now. As I said before your subconscious doesn’t know the difference between what’s real or fake. If you reprogram the stories that you tell yourself about yourself, the behaviour will naturally just change…

When it becomes a way of being, rather than a challenge or a goal, you can actually achieve the things you want in your life.

When people say “money is hard to come by” or “money comes in but it goes out even quicker”. These are both stories a broke person will say to themselves, hence why they are broke…

If you look around at your life right now, understand that your life is the way it is because of your identity and the stories that make up your identity. So what are the stories in your life that are holding you back? What things do you tell yourself daily that are weighing you down?

So instead of living in the HAVE DO BE, you need to live in the BE DO HAVE. Here are 3 questions you can ask to try and work this out for yourself:

1. What is the environment (goal) that I want to achieve?

2. What skills and behaviours do I need to have and execute for me to achieve the environment (goal)?

3. What beliefs and identity do I need to have right now to BE the person I want to become?

So if you can BE those beliefs and identify in that way, and DO the skills and behaviours you need to do, you will start to HAVE the environment and goals that you want to achieve.

So for me, here is mine for the next 90 days:

Environment (goal)

• $80,000 p/m in my business

Behaviour

• Refine brand proposition (approach and value for brands), negotiate with brands

• Script, record, build podcast course (3 days p/w 5am-10am)

• Plan week + time block every Sunday

Skills

• Effective and planned time management.

• Prioritised To Do list.

• Say NO more. Focus.

Beliefs

• Everything is not going to be okay if you don’t follow through on this

• Distractions are a key to a door you don’t want to open

• Everything becomes easier or unnecessary when completing what matters

Identity

• I don’t change to suit other people. What you see, is what you get.

• I am disciplined and follow through on what I say I’m going to do.

• I show 100% commitment to each day.

So for me, my biggest downfall was my time management and getting distracted. The reason I got distracted so easily was because I was already doing so well and if I didn’t complete the tasks on the To Do list I would still be okay. I’d still progress. But I wouldn’t reach anywhere near my potential. Notice how in this little paragraph I am speaking like its in the past? Biggest downfall was, I got distracted, I would still be okay. That’s because in order to change, I can’t be identifying with these things anymore.

Don’t just wait until you HAVE certain things so you can start DOing the things you need to do so you can then finally BE the person you want to be. Because guess what? If you live like this you will be constantly waiting. You will go around in circles ending up in the exact same place you are in right now.

You will only change when your identity changes. BE that person and watch your life fall into place…

Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter. Hopefully a much more practical one so you all can take away some value to implement into your life.

If you did enjoy, please be sure to share this on your Instagram story and tag me so I can express my gratitude towards you. And share this with a friend you think would gain value from this newsletter so we can continue to grow the community we’re building.

Thank you all so much and have an amazing week!

Chris x