No to the Status Quo

Yesterday, you, me, and our homunculi came to the conclusion that we aren't as motivated to change our lives as we thought.  Instead, we're pretty ambivalent about the whole thing.  One the one hand, we want the rewards that come with carrying out change; yet, on the other hand, change is HARD, yo!  Do the benefits outweigh the costs?  Today, we're going to stick with more change-focused metacognition to convince ourselves that changing is the only option.

That's right, I'm using a seesaw as a metaphor for ambivalence. And?

Our strategy is simple.  We are going to ignore all anti-change thinking and spend dedicated, focused time thinking about all the reasons why change is the way to go.  Yesterday, we created a freaky-long list of all the reasons why a change will be awesome.  Today, we're going to make another freaky-long list of all the reasons why NOT changing stinks.  By consciously ignoring all the bad aspects of changing, we're tweaking our own internal bias to be more change-oriented.  Sneaky!

No to the Status Quo

Task: Think again about the main thing you'd like to change about your life.  Brainstorm as many reasons why NOT changing is a bad idea.

Info: Go all stream-of-consciousness on this task: write down any reason you can think of why the status quo is bad.  Really get into this - the more you can convince yourself that the reasons you list are critical things to avoid, the more this will work. 

Goal: Create a list of at least 10 reasons why the status quo is a no-go.  Whoa.  Can you generate more than 10 reasons?  Do it.  

Post your list in the comments to prove that you are motivated!

Author's note: This Week of Motivation has been inspired by Motivational Interviewing, Second Edition: Preparing People for Change

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