Achieving lasting change requires more than just words. April Shprintz discusses why changing your behavior and taking real action as soon as you can are the keys to profound self-transformation.
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The Missing Piece To Lasting Change
I am so glad you’re here. If you read the previous episode, I told you how I was the problem with my dog, Cowboy, and how we were working on training and getting him to be this amazing pup that he truly always was. I got to tell you. The changes in him are amazing and they’re lasting. It made me think about the difference between when we truly own something and when we’re just admitting there’s a problem and how that difference is the difference between having truly lasting change that we love. Let me explain this to you and I’m just going to go ahead and tell you. I may be taking a little creative license with these words and putting my own definition on them, but doing so will help me help you in such a big way.
What True Ownership Looks Like
Again, I’m going to use my cowboy example but we could use any example. When you admit to something, you admit that you’re wrong. Someone points out that you’ve done something that hurts their feelings or made a mistake, etc. Admitting it sounds something like this, “I’m so sorry. I did that. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to make that mistake. That’s terrible. I’ll never do that again.” Some people would say that. It’s ownership. I owned that. I did it. No, you admitted that you did it, which is just words or as a good friend of mine, Erika Gerdes likes to say, “Words. Words.”
It doesn’t mean anything because the things we say only matter as much as we back them up with action. When you think about true ownership, that is taking responsibility for what you’ve done or not done. However, you’re looking at it. For me with cowboy, it was owning that I had not invested the time to train him and help him be his best self. If it was a mistake I made with my partner, it would be owning that I took my feelings out on him in an argument about something else and saying, “Here’s what I did and here’s what I’m going to do to change it,” then following that up with action.
With cowboy, the action was to invest the time in the training. With a partner, it would be, “I’m going to do this the next time I’m in a bad mood. I’m going to look to handle this differently. This is how I’m going to change,” and then following it up with action. Many people talk about owning things but they’re missing that action piece. If you don’t change your behavior, you’re not going to have lasting change. Saying something about it isn’t enough.
If you do not change your behavior, you will not have lasting change. Saying something about it is not enough. Share on XI’ll give you a food analogy. Someone who says, “I’ve got to stop eating all this junk food. I know this isn’t healthy for me.” The ownership part of that is making a plan for how you’re going to eat healthier things and maybe that you cook for yourself. Maybe that you have planned meals or you don’t go to places where you’re going to be likely to make those food choices you don’t want to make and then you follow through. Here’s the thing. Take that action as quickly as possible, even if it’s messy and even if the action isn’t perfect yet.
Taking the action solidifies your commitment to the change and also if you’re dealing with other people who are looking for you to take ownership and be different. That action is what builds trust back with them. It is so vitally important. I want to make sure that you know that admitting is not the same as owning. Owning always has an action piece. When you take that action piece early and often, that’s how you’re going to get lasting change. I’ll give you one more example with mindset.
In the early stages, you’re identifying where your mindset isn’t working for you but it can feel even more negative than it is. That is the admission. That is admitting that your mindset isn’t what you want. The action piece is practicing the reframes like in early episodes that we talked about. It is looking for ways, things are working out for you instead of happening to you. It is taking that extra step. Now, that extra step might seem like a lot of work, but that extra step is the one that’s going to change your life. All of the words, all of the admissions, those are nice and fun but they are not going to do shit.
Find Something To Change In Your Life
What I challenge you with is to find something that you want to change about your life, big or small. Admit to yourself where you are but then own how you’re going to change and immediately take action. If you do this, I want to hear about it. I get so excited about the positive changes that people make in their life. Don’t forget, you can always go to my website, WinningMindsetMasteryPodcast.com. All the way down near the bottom of the page, there’s the Ask April section. Don’t forget, you can ask me a question there and it comes to me personally. I will answer you myself. No one else hears it. It’s completely private, but you can share your wins with me there too because all I care about is hearing about how your life gets better. Here’s to your success.
