The Secret to Creating Real Change in Midlife
Blog post by Heidi Gustafson
Mindset & Transformation Coach
Mastering Midlife with Heidi is dedicated to helping middle-aged women live their lives with confidence and joy, instead of merely surviving.
By midlife, most of us have developed a lot of habits. And many of them we don’t like - eating junk food, not working out regularly, watching too much TV, procrastinating. Maybe smoking or drinking too much is on your list too.
By definition, a habit is something repeated enough times it becomes automatic.
Come home from work, take off your shoes, and veg on the couch for longer than you wanted. Turn on a movie and mindlessly eat the whole bag of chips while watching. Drink a half bottle of wine while preparing dinner.
Do these once, and it’s no big deal. But repeated over and over, and suddenly you have a habit you don’t even think about, and one you probably don’t want.
Most of us think of habits as something we do (or don’t do)... physical things. But that’s not what this blog is about.
Have you ever considered that your thoughts are habits too?
A thought you think repeatedly becomes a habit… a mental habit. If you stub your toe or trip, what automatically comes to mind? “I’m so clumsy.” If you make a mistake at work: “I’m so dumb.” If you think of a conversation you’ve been putting off having: “I’m so stressed.”
We don’t consciously think: “I’m going to think this thought now.” The thought just pops up automatically.
These negative mental habits are the worst type of habits to have because they turn into negative beliefs we have about ourselves.
The beliefs you have about yourself are what drive your behavior. That is, we behave according to our habits/beliefs. So when you have a lot of negative mental habits - and you have no choice but to behave according to those habits - what you experience in your reality is more of what you already have.
Your beliefs are in the driver’s seat of your life… and it doesn’t matter if they haven’t passed the driving test!
Here’s a personal example from my life that happened more than once.
When I became unhappy in my marriage, I would start overeating and gain a significant amount of weight. Overeating became a habit to soothe myself. It became my comfort zone. You could look at this as a physical habit and that losing the weight should be as simple as stopping the habit of overeating.
But this soothing myself with food became a mental habit. I was extremely unhappy - unhappiness spurred by infidelity in one marriage and controlling, emotional abuse in another. The habit of not taking care of myself, not speaking up for myself, and of putting another person’s wants and needs ahead of mine turned into a belief about myself that I wasn’t worthy of a loving, fulfilling, happy marriage. That unworthiness belief drove everywhere I went. I was just a passenger at this point.
This “not good enough” belief caused me to:
gain weight to “protect” myself against being vulnerable
not state my opinion or desires
put up with being told I was selfish and unloving
believe I didn’t know how to show love to my family and friends
drink too much
completely abandon self-care
lock myself in my own bathroom to just get 10 minutes to myself
end up in ER due to the overwhelming stress and anxiety
lose my chance to be a mom
The costs of this belief didn’t affect only intimate relationships. It caused me to stay in jobs long after I should have left, and to tolerate people disrespecting and taking advantage of me.
January 1, 2018 was the turning point for me. I realized I was living my life for others and went to work on changing my people-pleasing behaviors that I thought were the problem.
I thought once I changed these behaviors, that everything would fall into place, I would lose the weight I had gained again, and my life would be happy.
It took me a few months of eating differently and trying to create boundaries and prioritize myself, but I wasn’t getting any changes. I’d quickly fall back into old patterns of making sure everyone else was happy and okay, and eating to soothe myself.
I thought changing my behaviors was the key. I didn’t realize my behaviors weren’t in the driver’s seat, my beliefs were.
Once I had that lightbulb moment of figuring out my beliefs were the source of - well, EVERYTHING - things started changing for the better… fast!
I learned to put myself first without feeling guilty or selfish, I lost weight without dieting, and I started saying no more often to things that didn’t feel right to me.
Are you tired of being on the hamster wheel of trying to create change in your life?
Whether it’s weight loss, making more money, stopping the procrastination, taking more “me-time,” staying more focused and committed, or having a better partnership, I invite you to consider it’s not a behavior you need to change. It’s a mental habit.
The bottom line is: Your beliefs create your underlying identity and to get long-term changes, you MUST shift the parts of your identity that aren’t serving you.
Many times we can’t see these parts of ourselves because they are so ingrained from childhood. (I only saw this belief I had of myself through the support of Codependents Anonymous.)
If you’re struggling and frustrated with trying to change something in your life, I invite you to reach out to me. We’ll have a 30-minute clarity call to see if it feels like a fit to work together. The call is free and I’m certain you’ll learn something about yourself just in this call.
What do you have to lose?
It’s time to trade in fear. Invest in joy. Confidence. Peace.
Say goodbye to your old life and claim your FREE call to determine if coaching and/or hypnosis feels right for you.