The Secret to Behavior Change
So you want to shift your behavior?
Hustle harder.
Stay up later.
Focus more.
Get up earlier.
Chase the bright shiny things.
These are all ideas in our current world that many think are part of the recipe to change behavior.
What if I told you there was a better way?
And that better way allows you to reach goals using the power that is already within you?
We all have big, hairy, audacious dreams we are chasing. OR…we are ignoring them because we are scared of failing.
To unlock true potential, you must be honest with yourself and have a basic understanding of how different parts of your mind operate.
Conscious mind: our rational mind that controls our critical thinking, short term memory, logical thinking and will power. We have easier access to this part of our mind, and only controls 5-10% of our life.
Subconscious mind: our emotional mind that controls our beliefs, values, habits, additions, emotions, imagination, intuition, long term memory, fight or flight responses and important bodily functions like automatic breathing and digestion. WOAH. This part of our mind controls 90-95% of our life.
Creating change in life is not easy, but it is definitely possible when you understand your Rider, Elephant, and Path.
We can change our lives by training our subconscious mind to work with our conscious mind through the practice of aligning daily actions with our dreams.
Derived from the insights of NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt, he developed an analogy to help imagine the subconscious and conscious mind by using images of an Elephant, a Rider, and a Path.
Imagine in your head a person (AKA the rider) riding a top an elephant. The rider is trying to direct the elephant down a certain path, but the elephant does not want to go that way.
The rider jumps off and is now standing beside an elephant and grabs the harness around the elephant.
Pulling with all their might, the rider can NOT get the elephant to move down the path because the elephant does not WANT to move.
The Elephant represents our subconscious or emotional mind (and also has a 6 ton weight advantage over the rider.)
The Rider represents our conscious mind or rational mind.
The Path represents our external environment and obstacles along the way.
If you have been struggling to align your actions with the life you want to live, you may have never done the work to give direction to your Rider, tap into your Elephant’s emotions, and create a low friction Path for a cruising elephant.
Here are the beginning steps to any behavior change:
Give direction to the Rider: create clarity of the direction you want to go. Do this by taking time to think and write about “How does my best self think, speak, and act?”
Motivate the Elephant: Keeping in mind of how your best self thinks, speaks, and acts, WHY do you want to shift to this person? How do you feel when you make the shift?
Tap into all the sensations you will feel when you achieve this.. What do you see, smell, hear, and feel inside and outside of your body? What emotions do you desire to have?
You can create easier access to your deep emotions by challenging your current beliefs through:
👀Visualization
📝Journaling
💨Breathing Exercises
🧘♀️Meditation
✨Gratitude Practice
➕Positive Affirmations
Shape the Path: create a path of least resistance. Look at the path ahead.. How can you adjust and tweak your environment to move your Elephant down the path?
For example, if your “Rider” wants to become a better runner, one way to shape the path is to lay out all your running clothes the night before an early morning run.
To shift and change any behavior, it can be a true challenge.
But when you tap into your deep emotions and desires, it can create clarity of what you truly want.
By giving direction to your dreams and the path you want to go down, and then becoming motivated by your deep emotions is where you can truly start to feel aligned and experience behavior change.
