8 Steps That Help You Make Changes in Your Life

If you really want to change, you must develop a strategy for change.  Proverbs 24 tells us it’s the only smart thing to do.Proverbs 24:3-6 (The Message): It takes wisdom to build a house, and understanding to set it on a firm foundation; It takes knowledge to furnish its rooms with fine furniture and beautiful draperies. It’s better to be wise than strong; intelligence outranks muscle any day. Strategic planning is the key to warfare.

Strategic planning is the key!

With a strategy, we can build our dream house of positive change. Having a strategy is like having a road map. If you take a trip without a map, you can easily get off course. But with a map, it’s easy to find the way to where you want to go.

The main reason people abort their progress toward change is they face resistance. They begin to feel bad or uncomfortable during the process of change, so they just give up. But if you take the time to develop a strategy, that strategy will become the map to help you maneuver past this resistance.

A well-thought-out strategy works like the global positioning system (GPS) in your car or cell phone. Such GPS systems search out a minimum of three satellites to pinpoint your exact location. Likewise, a good strategy can help you determine exactly where you are and what direction you must go to arrive at your desired destination. It will keep you out of denial and moving forward. When you identify areas where  you need to change and develop a specific action plan to change them, it is simple to stay on course.

So how do you go about developing a strategy that will work for you? What elements are important? Here’s an eight-step plan to develop your strong strategy for change.

# 1: Expose Yourself to a New Environment

One of the best ways to jump-start change is to interrupt your patterns. When I was a pastor, there was a point when God wanted to change our church. We embarked on a nine-week prayer meeting we called “Pray Through.” We came to church every night for sixty-three nights! Let me tell you, that will interrupt anyone’s pattern.

After the first three weeks, one of our staff members barged into my office and said, “Pastor, I don’t know if I can make it any longer.” I had to get an oxygen tank to resurrect him from the dead! The hard part was that I felt the same way he did—I needed an oxygen tank too! But that incredibly focused time was just what we needed. It interrupted our church’s normal, confining pattern and helped us move forward into new things.

If you are trying to change, you need to interrupt your daily patterns and exposure to something different.

If you are confined to a hospital with an illness, go outside and get some fresh air. If possible, ride a bike or go fishing! Do anything that will break the influence of that illness on your life. If you see the same four walls and the same doctors every day, they will become the only world you know. You must get out of your current environment and find a new world.

Maybe you aren’t confined to a hospital bed, but your daily life has become just as monotonous. You get up, eat breakfast, drink coffee, go to work, come home, watch a little TV, and go to bed. You get up the next morning and do it all again. In order for you to experience change, your daily rhythm needs to be interrupted. Now, this does not require you to make a radical change; even something as simple as exercising for thirty minutes a day or reading something positive and inspirational every morning will make a tremendous difference.

In Acts 9, we read the story of a man who experienced a major life interruption. Saul, a man who persecuted Christians, was moving along on his regular course of business when God showed up in the form of a bright light and knocked him off his horse. When Saul hit the dirt, the first word out of his mouth was “Lord.” That was a major change in routine! He went from persecuting Christians to calling Jesus “Lord” in a matter of seconds. But Saul was so head-strong and driven that God needed to interrupt his daily pattern a bit more, so He blinded Saul for three days. Saul stepped up to the challenge and eventually became the man we know as Paul.

Unfortunately, some people would rather quit than adapt to a new pattern. People end up abandoning their marriage partner, quitting their job, and leaving their church because a familiar pattern gets  interrupted  and  they  do  not  know  how  to  cope. They  don’t understand that being in a new environment is the real key to their change.

If you are having trouble with your marriage, you need to hang around couples who have solid, healthy relationships. Maybe plan a weekly dinner date with a couple whose marriage you admire. Their influence will rub off on you. If you are dissatisfied with your job, you should hang out with people who are practicing fulfilling careers. Get around them and discover what they are thinking, seeing and expecting. Fill your mind with new information. You must learn to see differently, hear differently and even smell differently if you want to experience change. A new environment will help you do just that.

My wife once did something that was absolutely phenomenal. She brought home a new food—celery root! Let’s just say I was not enthusiastic about her discovery at first. But when she put that celery root in a pot, boiled it and whipped it, it looked like mashed potatoes. She served it to me with cream, butter, salt and pepper and I thought I was in heaven! I am telling you the truth; I had a spiritual experience right there eating celery root. We all need more exposure to new experiences. We all need fresh ideas. Seek out these sources to change your environment!

# 2: Locate and Use Available Resources

The second step toward developing a strategy for change is to locate and use the resources that are available to you. When Nehemiah wanted to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, he went to the greatest resource he had—the king (Nehemiah 2). With the king’s help, Nehemiah was able to accomplish his goal.

There are many resources available to help anyone change, but most people never take the time to do a little digging and find, let alone use, these resources. Books, audiobooks, social media, podcasts, blogs, vlogs, programs, groups, magazines—these are just a few of the resources out there that are easy to find and generally free to access.

There is a wealth of information out there that can teach you how to improve any area of your life. There is no excuse for ignorance!

If you want to lose weight, check out one of the countless books available at your local library. As you devour all of the free content, you might find yourself in a more empowered position to start spending a bit of your budget on these resources. Watch workout videos. Buy a used workout video game for your console. Follow a fitness blogger or a fitness Instagram account. There are lots of options for you, no matter your age or technological savvy. Things will snowball for you if you just get out there and look.

# 3: Find a Coach

Find what may be the most important resource you can have—someone who will coach you. This person will be your moral support when the going gets tough. He or she can provide you with the wisdom of their experience and give you encouragement and advice. This could be a friend or a relative, even a coworker or boss, if the situation is appropriate. It could be your pastor, your small group leader, or just an acquaintance. The point is to be bold in asking for their help.    If you want to lose weight and know someone who is at the gym constantly, ask if you can tag along! If you are wanting to climb the ladder at work and you have a successful colleague, ask if you can learn from him or her. Find someone who is succeeding where you need help and hang around with them. Let their success rub off on you and motivate you!

If you cannot find someone who is willing to coach you in person, all is not lost. Find someone you admire and get your hands on all the content they produce. As busy as I now am in my daily life, my ability to meet with an in-person mentor is not what it once was. So now, if I want to learn something, I pick a guru to follow online and devour their content. I had to do this to learn Internet marketing when I opened my first business after retirement. If you are unable to establish a personal mentoring relationship, find an electronic mentor. Finding people you can pattern your success after is a shortcut to change.

Why reinvent the wheel? Find someone who has already invented it and borrow it!

# 4: Imagine the Pain

This might sound strange, but it’s important to really imagine the pain you will experience by staying the same. Picture it in detail— sight, sound and feeling. Imagine your health’s trajectory if you stay the same. Imagine the unhappiness you feel in your job every day.  I know this is not a fun task, but it is a motivating one. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 7:10, “Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation.” The word sorrow means pain, and the word repentance means to change your mind. So, another translation of that passage could read, “The pain that you allow God to direct brings a changing of the mind.”

Whenever you connect your current behavior to pain, you become willing to let go of that behavior and embrace change. If you tell a small child not to touch a hot stove but they do it anyway, chances are you will never have to warn them again. They will see the stove, remember the pain they felt as a consequence for their decision to touch it, and will lose the desire to repeat that behavior.

This concept of painful consequences is difficult for many people to grasp because as a society, we no longer value delayed gratification. We want what we want instantly, and we are unwilling to go through any pain to obtain our desires. We must be creative if we are going to imagine the painful consequences of not changing. Ask yourself the following questions to help you imagine that pain. What short-term consequences will I suffer if I do not change? What long-term consequences will be the result of my staying the same?

Do yourself a favor and intensely imagine the pain and suffering you will experience if you do not change.

Allow the fear of that pain to propel you toward your needed transformation. Fear alone will not change you, but if you harness your fear rightly and combine it with hope, it can motivate you. Perhaps then you will truly launch yourself toward change.

# 5: Imagine the Gain

The fifth step is the opposite of the fourth. Instead of picturing the pain you will suffer as a result of not changing, picture the benefits you will experience if you do change. Again, imagine this in vivid detail—sight, sound and feeling. Most people do this automatically when they make the decision to change from being single to being married. They daydream of the intimacy and companionship they will experience in marriage. Perhaps you daydream of the joy you will have when you change from being stressed about finances to being in control of your finances.

Think about your favorite benefits of changing and hold tightly to them!

When I was a teenager, I lost more than fifty pounds using   this exact technique. First, I bought a too-small pair of expensive swimming trunks. Then I pictured myself standing on the diving board of our local swimming pool—in front of all the girls. I clearly saw myself slimmed down and fitting into those trunks. I imagined myself catching the eye of the right lady. This picture became so real to me that I lost the weight in a little over two months! Ask yourself a few questions to form your mental picture of your life after change.

# 6: Determine How You Will Deal with Resistance

When you start down the road to change, you will encounter resistance, and it won’t just be internal resistance. So deal with it--in fact, determine in advance how you will deal with it! Yes, if you decide to go on a diet, images of cheesecake will faithfully begin appearing in your mind. But you’ll also experience the outside pressure of friends saying, “Come on, just cheat this once!” Your emotions and, unfortunately, sometimes your environment will violently resist the change. Many people give up when the resistance gets tough, but that’s when you need to get tougher.

"It won't hurt to cheat just once," somebody says. If only that were true! Too often, though, giving in to that resistance is a trigger that causes you to completely abandon your decision to eat properly. Inevitably, as you begin to live out your change, you will most likely experience some level of failure. Most people experience failure at some point in the change process.

Let's face it, change is hard and requires constant vigilance.

The path to dealing with resistance is not uniform because we are all different and our communities are different. So think carefully about your life and potential triggers. Plan out how you will act and what you will say when faced with resistance. Overcome your feelings of guilt brought on by past failures and focus instead on the things you have accomplished. Don’t focus on the places you have fallen short. Just get up and re-imagine the gain.

# 7: Replace Bad Thoughts and Behaviors with Good Ones

A major key to change in your life is to replace harmful thoughts and behaviors with encouraging and beneficial ones. This is the substitution principle.

When you substitute something positive for something negative, something good replaces something bad.

One of the reasons dieting is so difficult is that you cannot stop eating completely. You can totally eliminate abusive substances such as alcohol or drugs and be better off for it, but you cannot totally eliminate food. Because you cannot replace the familiar pattern of putting food in your mouth, dieting is a particularly difficult change. Take it from someone who has struggled with dieting on and off his entire life. It’s tough!

In my opinion, the best approach to losing weight is to replace fattening foods with healthy foods. Find foods that help you lose weight and maintain a healthy weight, then stock up! I enjoy eating meat, so I replaced carb-heavy foods with protein-heavy foods. I discovered that I could not drastically overeat protein-rich foods, and I began to lose my extra pounds. It was fairly easy to maintain a healthy weight eating like this because I was able to eliminate a familiar, damaging food pattern by replacing it with a beneficial one.

The same substitution principle applies to thoughts. If you struggle with a certain negative thought, replace it continually with a positive one until the new thought becomes a habit. This is where biblical confession can help. You can break negative thinking patterns by countering them with the Word of God. For example, every time you think, I’m not going to make it, replace this thought with Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Keep doing that until Philippians 4:13 flows naturally from your thoughts. Let that truth sink in. Believe me, there is a Bible verse that is perfect for whatever change you’re attempting to assimilate.

The best example I know of the power of substitution is a story about a man who had a terrible drinking problem. He decided he would replace drinking with painting. Whenever the desire for alcohol surfaced, he would paint. Painting turned out to be a great outlet for the emotional needs that were leading him to drink in the first place. As he continued this pattern of substitution, it became so ingrained in his life that he totally overcome his addiction.

# 8: Choose Your Reward

The last step you should take to prepare yourself for personal change is to decide how you will reward yourself for your accomplishment. Rewarding yourself for change is an important motivator. In 1 Samuel 17:26, before David went out to fight Goliath, David asked, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine?” Though I’m sure David was motivated to fight Goliath to defend the honor of God Almighty against the slander of Goliath, the generous reward being offered by King Saul for the defeat of the giant surely motivated David even further. God understands the importance of rewards. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

It is healthy to reward yourself!

It is important to always be moving toward a goal in your life. Knowing in advance how you will reward yourself once the goal is reached enables you to overcome any short-term discomforts of change because you know that your reward is waiting!

Rewards may be something you desire or something you need. A two-week trip to Hawaii is a great reward for losing fifty pounds, but so is the benefit of better health or the ability to finish a marathon. Use something important to you as motivation for personal change. And always think big when it comes to rewards!