Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the book Whoops! I Forgot to Achieve My Potential.

“I love change. It’s so easy and fun.”   ~ said no one, ever

So, let’s just admit it right now. You want to make some changes. You probably don’t know what they are yet, right? But you know something has got to change. You’ve got to get that earworm of discontent out of your head. You need to change the station, somehow. And you don’t want the earworm to come back, so you want to make the change stick. If you are honest with yourself, you admit that you’ve tried to make changes in the past. Many of them haven’t stuck, or you wouldn’t be in this position. You would be a change-making machine, chugging your way down the road to Potentialtown, passing all kinds of milestones along the way. So let’s take a few moments to set you up to be successful. That’s the purpose of preparation – it’s a set up.

The number one reason changes don’t stick is that we don’t pick something that fits us. There’s no one-size-fits-all. Period. You are unique. Why would you expect that just anything off the shelf should fit you? That’s unreasonable. Think back about some of the changes you’ve tried to make. Have you tried to change your eating plan? Go gluten-free, or Paleo or Atkins or South Beach or try the bacon diet (is that even a thing?)? Did you try to change your exercise regime by taking up barre? Give up Facebook for Lent? Did you try a new meditation practice? Did you try to jump on the bandwagon of the last or next big thing? You get the idea. How many of these things stuck? Most didn’t, probably, because they don’t fit. And that’s totally okay. You should absolutely try anything that you think you might like, but don’t commit to changing your life around it until you know it’s a fit for you.

The second biggest reason changes don’t stick is that people don’t do everything they can to set themselves up to succeed. They kind of throw themselves at the change and hope it works out. I think we can do better for you.

So coming in the next blog: Highlights of a personal change management strategy.