How To Change Yourself Completely And Stick With New Habits For 30 Days

Your parents are sick.

They are in the hospital suffering from a serious illness.

This illness is so new and unique that your insurance found a way to weasel itself out of paying for the medical bills.

However there is medication for it that your parents must take every day or they will die.

You are a bit in luck though, as your job exactly covers the medical expenses.

The problem is that at your job your boss said they have to cut expenses so they will fire anyone that does not perform.

Now, to the question:

Imagine you got sick one of these days.

You developed a fever and a big headache.

It’s not enough so you cannot move, but plenty to give you a lot of discomfort.

Would you go to work?

If you don’t, you might get fired, meaning your parents would die.

Most of us would not even think about this.

We would say “Who cares that I’m sick? Feeling unwell and have a headache? It’s my parents lives that are at stake! Of course I will go to work!”

There is not a doubt in our minds.

We do not have an option in this regard.

We have to go to work! If you want to be serious about your habits you have to make them something you cannot not do.

It has to be such an easy, simple question as the one above of whether or not you should go to work to save your parents lives.

In any other case we will find excuses.

When you create a reason that’s so pressing you do not have that option anymore you will follow the habit without a shadow of a doubt.

Even now we look for excuses to avoid the work, look for ways to weasel ourselves out, because we realize that we do not really have to go.

We have the option not to do work and still be fine.

For that you have to dive deep though.

If there’s no natural reason around that makes the habit a must then you have to go out of your way to create one.

This means diving deep into your reasoning, asking ‘Why’ as often as you can and finding answers for that.

Let’s say you want to work out every day.

Why? Well, because you want to be fit.

Why does that matter? Because it allows you to do better at your job.

Why does that matter? Because it gives you the opportunity to make more money.

Now that’s a Get serious about your life. Must.

Why does that matter? Because with more money you can support your family more.

Why is that important? Because when you were a child you never got the opportunity to travel. Your parents were always worried about money and as a child you received those worries too. You don’t want your kids to feel any of that worry and want to give them all the opportunites in the world.

Why? Because you love them more than you can bear. You have to do it. For them.

And when you find that reason then the habit isn’t optional anymore. Of course you will do it for 30 days! There’s no doubt about that at all.

So you’re going to go to the gym so you are fit so that your children can have the life you never had because you love them.

Go so deep that you honestly feel as though you must follow through with the habit.

The above example may not go deep enough or not give the answers you may give.

You might even find you’re stuck at some points.

But I guarantee you, that if you sit down for 60 Minutes and actively think about this, you will come up with a reason that does not allow you to back down.

Originally published at http://quora.com.