Stick With It: Changing Your Life

A Process for Changing Your Life

1.  Stepladders
2.  Community
3.  Important
4.  Easy
5.  Neurohacks
6.  Captivating
7.  Engrained


-  Sean Young, PhD.  Stick with It: A Scientifically Proven Process for Changing Your Life - For Good.  New York, Harper Collins, 2017.  289 pages, index, notes.  

How to Live a Good Life: Advice From Wise Persons

1. Stepladders

Stepladders are specific tasks, deeds, or actions done during one week.  Steps can also involve not doing some task, behavior, or action.  Goals are accomplishments or achievements made in one month from actualizing the specific stepladders.  Dreams are possible accomplishments occurring in three months after accomplishing goals from doing specific stepladder tasks.  Attention and action should be focused on specific steps each week, and far less emphasis on longer term goals or dreams. 

The stepladders must be specific, time fixed, easy, doable, concrete, and measurable.  The stepladders must not be too steep, too high, unrealistic, or way to hard.  Start small and slowly build up. 

Stepladders, at first, must be realistic and expectations must be lower so success is more certain.  

You must track, monitor, evaluate, and reflect on your weekly progress up the stepladder to success.

2. Community

Many people find that working together with other people with the same objective and goals is very beneficial to them.  Many join actual groups or classes, and many use Internet applications to communicate and work with others on shared goals.  The author gives many good examples of online groups and applications for this purpose of interpersonal support, education, and encouragement.  Telling family and friends may also provide support and encouragement.  A spouse or good friend might join you in your new weekly objectives on the stepladder.  Libraries offer many good books to help you learn and get motivated.  Sometimes, however, rely only on yourself and get started anyway. 

3.  Important

If the change desired is not really important to you, then you will not implement the stepladders.  Your goals must be a high priority or be of critical importance to your health, success, or happiness.  Goals of declining interest or low importance will not be realized.