I want to share something with all of you that I think will be really interesting. Right now, I’m personally working on changing a behavior pattern I’ve had most of my life. I’m not going to tell you what it is, because it is not like I’d be admitting it to my best friend (but rather to probably around 10,000 people). I am, however, going to talk about the process I’m going through to change that behavior.

 
I am actually doing an exercise I tell all my clients to do. Every week, write down how your week went. Write down your wins and your losses, and do this based upon whatever behavior pattern you want to change.

We tend to get in our heads so much about something we want to change about ourselves. We tend to beat ourselves up so much that we don’t see the gains we’ve made.
 
So as part of working on this behavior I’m working on changing, last night I actually wrote down my wins and losses for the week. I had six wins and two losses. That’s a great week!

What’s so interesting is that if you don’t write down your wins and losses, then you can often miss them. Your two losses will feel like a hundred and your six wins won’t feel like any, because when you want to change something about yourself it tends to feel like an overwhelming task. It’s easy to get discouraged.

I also tell people to write down how they want their week to be. So, for example, if you want to meet women then write down where you’d like to meet them.

That way, you can always envision yourself doing these things. If you can envision yourself doing things, then you’re already feeling how it feels to be successful in the situation.

By writing down your wins and losses, you are confirming that you can actually break this behavior pattern. It takes time to really break behavior patterns. It takes work.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a magic pill we could all take that would eliminate the things that drive us crazy about ourselves? Well, there is no such magic pill or herb or pharmaceutical drug that does that. There’s nothing but hard work, determination and perseverance to achieve that.

When you write this stuff down and look at it, it becomes far less intimidating. You actually can see yourself accomplishing it even more.

It takes thirty days to form new behaviors. That’s it, just thirty days . . . but it takes thirty days of being aware, thirty days of work, thirty days of trial and error, thirty days of wins and thirty days of setbacks.

By documenting it — writing it down and reading it on a weekly basis — you can actually trick your mind into making it easier. I even tell some people to do this on a daily basis so they can look at their daily wins and losses.

Remember that we all have losses. If you watched the football game last night, you saw a great example of this.

In that game, Hines Ward caught a great pass. His competitive nature made him fight to get to the end zone. He got the ball stripped from his hands which meant that instead of winning, the Steelers were forced into overtime.

If you look at Hines Ward on the sidelines afterwards you can see that even though he had a great night, that the fumble got to him. He was stamping his feet, pacing around and blowing off steam. When Pittsburgh got the ball in overtime, however, he was back on the field blocking and running and acting like the winner that he is.

Can you imagine if Hines Ward was trying to meet women and acted like a lot of you do? He would go into Whole Foods where a woman wouldn’t respond to him in the way he wants, so he would spend the the next three days thinking about what he should have done or said differently. No way. He’d never approach it that way.

Football players watch themselves on tape. It’s time you watched yourself. It’s time you journaled. It’s time you hold yourself accountable. It’s time to forgive yourself. It’s time to look at your wins and losses. Are you ready to play in the game of life?

Have a great Friday!