Every healthy person is seeking for personal development; this can be at work, working towards a healthier lifestyle, doing more sport, reducing stress, stop smoking, or taking on some hobbies you always wanted to do. Life is, and should be, dynamic and interesting, and indeed each and every person has the ability to pursue his or her own luck.

Often, the new year kicks off with a lot of good intentions. People promise themselves to quit smoking, to move to another place, to change their jobs, or to do sports three days a week. At the end of the year, many people find themselves back in their own routines, and they promise themselves these same things for the next year.

In order to manage change, and personal development, effectively, there are three important aspects to consider.

Identify your bolts

Many people mistake ‘change’ with something they want to achieve. For example, someone looking for a better job will state he wants to switch jobs. However, the new job is really a goal. The reason why this person has not yet found a better job is probably due to the fact that particular habits prohibit him form succeeding. It is often these habits that need to be changed; they are like little bolts in need for fine-tuning, in order to come one step closer to the goal. If someone has been shouting he wants a new job for over two years already, there is obviously something in his behavior preventing him from having success. This could be:

• lazyness
• procrastination
• a bad cover letter and resume
• or anything else

This can apply to many areas, such as someone wanting to lose weight, or stop smoking.

Kaizen

The Japanese have a term called Kaizen. Kaizen is translated as ‘improvement’, but really refers to small changes, which you can implement in your everyday life. People are often so focussed on the big picture, that they forget the tiny little bolts which hold everything together.

Kaizen is much easier to implement that one large change, since it involves small improvements which do not suddenly and  significantly impact life. Additionally, these improvements are continuous, they never stop; one small improvement is followed by another one, and as such the individual keeps developing.

For example, if you want to quite smoking, try at first to not smoke in the car. Later, you may stop smoking inside your apartment, or on the street. Step by step you are coming closer to your ultimate goal of being a non-smoker, simply by improving your habits a little bit at a time.

The 30-day rule

Most of the things we do every day are habitual. We have grown accustomed to a specific habit, and we do things without thinking about it. In many cases, personal development involves changing habits. Habits are hard-wired in our unconscious mind, meaning we do not think about it when doing it. And due to this hard wiring, it might be very difficult to change a habit.

Luckily, the brain has the possibility to create new connections, bypassing old ones, and therewith creating new habits. But the brain needs time. Usually, the brain will need about 30 days in order to become accustomed to a new habit, provided the habit is consciously and persistently conducted each and every day. After 30 days, the mind has already become accustomed to the new habit.

Still, falling back into old habits is still dangerously easier than keeping up with the new habit. Therefore, still some effort is required to keep up with the new habit. After approximately 90 days, the brain does not differentiate between the old and the new habit; it is just as easy to keep up with the new habit as to fall back into old habits. Only after a year or so, it will be more difficult to fall back into old habits than to keep up with the new habit. The brain has now created the necessary connections in order to execute the habit fully unconsciously.

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