30 Day Trial

I am always looking for new ways to motivate myself and I found a very powerful personal growth tool in a 30-day trial to change behaviors or habits. Let’s say you want to start a new habit or behavior like an exercise program or quit a bad habit like smoking. We all know that getting started and sticking with the new habit for a few weeks is the hard part. Once you’ve built up some inertia or momentum, it’s much easier to keep going and make the change permanent.

Unfortunately we often psyche ourselves out of getting started by mentally thinking about the change or changes as something permanent — before we’ve even begun. This can and often is very frightening and intimidating. It almost seems too overwhelming to think about making a big change and sticking to it every day for the rest of your life when you’re still habituated to doing the opposite. The more you think about the change as something permanent, the more you stay put, this goes for everybody desiring to make changes.

But what if you thought about making the change or changes only temporarily — say for 30 days or so — and then you’re free to go back to your old habits? That concept doesn’t seem so hard anymore or as unattainable. Exercise daily for just 30 days, then quit. Maintain a neatly organized desk for 30 days, and then you can slack off. Read for an hour a day for 30 days, and then you can go back to watching TV. These are simple and measurable goals and when you break the project down, more manageable.

Could you do it, could you make a temporary change to a habit that has been plaguing you? Even a temporary change still requires discipline and commitment, but not nearly so much as making a permanent change. Any perceived deprivation is only temporary. You can count down the days to freedom. And for at least 30 days, you will gain a benefit from the changes. It’s not so bad and you can handle it, after all it’s only one month out of your life.

Now if you actually complete a 30-day trial, what’s going to happen? First, you’ll go far enough to establish it as a habit, and it will be easier to maintain than it was to begin it. Secondly, you’ll break the addiction of your old habit during this time. Thirdly, you’ll have 30 days of success behind you, which will give you greater confidence that you can continue. And fourthly, you’ll gain 30 days worth of results, which will give you practical feedback on what you can expect if you continue.

Once you hit the end of the 30-day trial, your ability to make the habit permanent is vastly increased. But even if you aren’t ready to make it permanent, you can opt to extend your trial period to 60 or 90 days. The longer you go with the trial period, the easier it will be to lock in the new habit for life.

So, the short of all of this is, if you haven't heard from me in the last thirty days this posting should explain why the last communication that we had, whether by email, text or voice was on June 22, 2007. This doesn't mean that your wild speculations are correct or even on target, just remember that you tend to be a OMG person without the facts.

Till next time, live in peace and live now!