Neuroplasticity: How to build habits for life.

“People have uphill hopes but downhill habits”

— John C Maxwell

Oh the sheer, brutal truth in this.

That while hope is vital, it alone won’t see us over the finish line. It’s not quite enough to have just a dream. After all, a goal without a dream is just a wish.

It’s also a reminder that you do actually have to keep working on something — be it your personal development, your health, your business, your hobbies, your goal. Life is an upwards trajectory that does require ongoing effort.

This is also a lesson in growth mindset, and neuroplasticity — that the brain can be trained, changed as a result of experience. And it goes both ways — for better and for worse.

This is why you actually have to keep working on your habits throughout your life. It’s a daily practice.

(I know, right? No one said that before….)

As you get older, there can be a tendency to let things slide. Right around the time you get a mortgage, or take out a netflix membership. Priorities change, which changes your actions, and in turn your habits — but your dreams remain there in the wings. Haunting you.

If you choose comfort over the challenge — if you don’t match your dreams, desires and goals with your actions and your habits, then your dreams too will disappear in the rearview mirror — before you can even choose what series to start watching next.

Over and over again we hear about big goals (those hairy audacious ones), ambitious plans and shiny dreams.

But we hear less about what it actually takes to get there.

• Discipline.
• Taking action.
• Putting the hours in.

This gets almost no mention in the newsfeed, so there are feelings of frustration, shame, not being good enough when you don’t get “there”, overnight.

But it’s a whole journey. It might even last a lifetime, and that’s ok.

The trick to staying the whole course is to enjoy the process — not just the result. Otherwise every time it went south…