Follow the patterns not the words

One of the things that I learned when I started using the systems and habits approach to improvement was that I couldn’t trust the words that I spoke. I couldn’t even trust my thoughts because too often they were misleading.

I told myself that I wanted be prosperous. But I wasn’t willing to work more for more money. I told myself that I wanted to be healthy but I didn’t eat healthy foods or exercise. I was constantly telling myself what I thought was true but often my actions didn’t follow along.

In so many cases I was telling myself something that wasn’t correct. While untrue, I believed it to be truth. It seemed as though I was being honest with myself. Yet the behavior patterns didn’t seem to follow my thoughts.

The systems and habits approach to improvement is so focused on patterned behaviors that I started to realize that my thinking was limited. I was suck in part of the system and couldn’t see the full system.

I felt I wanted something so badly, more than anyone else. Yet my attempts to reach that level were stunted because I was constantly unwilling to do what was necessary.

We all know someone who always talks about something they want but never take action towards it. They claim they want to be rich or they want to start a business but they spend recklessly or never leave their job.

This is completely normal because thoughts and actions don’t always align. It is completely different to think about something than to do that something.

If we want to align our thoughts and actions we have to start being willing to do what we don’t want to do but know we should do.

It sounds easy but is incredibly difficult. That is why you should start incredibly small. Start with very easy steps but make sure to keep doing them over and over. That consistency will start to make doing them easier. Then you can add more difficult steps. Continue doing them and soon enough you will be doing the challenging aspects necessary.

Then your actions will start to align with your thoughts. You will realize how much different it is to do something than to think about something. You will start to realize that you were lying to yourself all these years and didn’t even know it.