And for most of us, these circumstances unfold as a result of the mental, physical, and emotional habits we set in motion in our everyday lives. Which leads us to the conclusion that if we simply change our habits then we can change our lives. At least, that is how I used to think.

I used to focus on developing new habits to replace old habits that I felt were holding me back or not giving me the results I wanted. I would work on changing my habit around getting up in the morning, my habit of going to the gym, and my habits around work and business.

What I realized though, is that when it comes to making changes that produce a lasting difference in those parts of your life that are important to you, there is something else that needs to come first.

It boils down to the difference between trying to force change to happen, and allowing it.

Let me explain.

The Difference Between Judgment and Allowance

What exactly is the difference between judgment and allowance?

• If you’re thinking about changing your eating habits because of how you look, that is a judgment. Allowance is when you accept the way your body is and choose to stop beating yourself up about it.
• If you’re always criticizing others for not living up to your expectations of them, that is a judgment. Allowance is when you accept others for who they are and don’t try to change them.
• If you compare your life to the lives of others and then resent the way your life is, that is a judgment. Allowance is when you accept the way your life is with gratitude for what you do have.
• If you focus on your money habit of spending more than you earn and beat yourself up for it, that is a judgment. Allowance is when you acknowledge your behavior and work out why this is a pattern for you. Once you understand where the pattern is coming from, then you can decide if you want to change it or not.
• If you just took the time to focus on being more allowing with yourself and your existing habits be they mental, physical, or emotional, would it make any real difference?

For example, if you have a habit of getting up late and starting the day feeling frantic and rushed, would being allowing help let go of the old habit at all?

I definitely think so.

As an example, when I get up late in the morning and feel unmotivated to do anything, then the first thing I do is to acknowledge how I am feeling. I don’t try to judge it, ignore it, or change it in any way. The simple act of acknowledging what is happening for me is what I call allowance.

For whatever reason, a part of me wanted to get up late so I accept it. This simple act of accepting things exactly the way they are without trying to change them as step one in making changes is a game changer. It’s like you are giving yourself permission to be okay with those parts of you that you might normally consider undesirable.

When you lighten up on yourself then you won’t need to force change to take place. Instead, it will happen naturally and easily without the need to struggle against those parts of you that you judge. In essence all you are really doing is silencing your inner critic.

Just the same as if you were to allow a toddler to have a tantrum instead of trying to control it or modify it’s behavior to make you feel more at ease, allowing yourself to be what you need to be in the moment should be just as permissible.

The reality is the toddler just needed to let of some steam. Likewise, the more you judge parts of you as unacceptable, the more they are going to throw a tantrum. You can never be at peace with yourself or your life until you learn to accept yourself just the way you are.

Here’s a few more reasons why you should focus on allowance instead of changing habits.

1. Allowance takes just a moment.

When you’re trying to change a habit, in essence you are saying to yourself , “I’m not okay with the way I am.” The challenge with this mindset is that you’re always judging yourself from the get-go before you even set about trying to develop a new habit. This is why it can be so difficult to make your new habits stick. It comes from a space of self-judgement rather than self-acceptance.

By accepting any thoughts and feelings that you may have been pushing down and allowing them you are taking the first step towards a happier and healthier life. Changing a habit is not going to give you the happiness you seek. Only accepting yourself as you are will do that for you.

2. Allowance is in alignment with universal energy.

Universal energy is simply the energy or life force that flows through everything that exists. I call it the source of all that is. The reason why this is important is because when you are in flow with the Universe then making changes is as simple as breathing.

It’s when you go against the flow of the your life that things can feel like a struggle. It’s like when you really want something that deep inside you you know is not really meant for you yet still you pursue it. You get so focused on the object of your desire that you lose sight of what’s actually important.

If you have to struggle to make a change then the Universe is already telling you that you’re going against the flow. That’s when you need to stop for a moment and ask yourself if where you are headed is where you really want to be. I find that in these cases  it’s just a matter of tuning into what your heart wants.

3. Allowance puts you back in the drivers seat of your life.

When you say ‘yes’ to yourself which is really what being allowing is all about, then you instantly become responsive to life rather than reactive. When you stuck in reacting to what goes on inside and around you then you become a puppet to unconscious behavior that you believe you have no control over.

That’s why it’s so important to practice being allowing. Between every stimuli and response there is a gap of opportunity for you to break the cycle of reactive behavior and take back control of how things unfold in the world around you.

All that’s needed is to take a slow, deep breath and pause for a moment as soon as you feel triggered. This gives you space to step back from the old reactive patterns so that you can calm down and choose exactly how you want to think, feel or behave.

How to Break Any Habit For Good

There really is only one step when it comes to breaking or changing habits – and that is to make a REAL decision. A real decision means that it’s something that is a must for you. If it’s not a must then forget about it and just keep doing what you are doing as it probably won’t stick anyway.

Most people wish their life were different rather than being 100% responsible for making it happen. That’s why if you just focus on changing habits without being the kind of person that follows through on what you say you are going to do then it’s a waste of time.

Ultimately, change can sometimes be for the better or the worse. You may think that the grass is greener on the other side only to arrive there and be more miserable. I’ve had this happen in areas such as relationships, finances, health and career. So be mindful of what your true motivation is for change as you might just get what you ask for.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please comment and share if you want more content like this.

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Michael Atma
Michael Atma Blog

PS: If you’d like to learn how to be more mindful in just 7 days — click here for instant access 

What’s really interesting about this question is that we already know the answer to it. How do I know that? Because we’ve done it before. And if we’ve done it before, then that means we can do it again – it’s just that we don’t remember how we did it. This will help you remember how to become a master habit creator anywhere and anytime.

What Is A Habit?

A habit is linked to a routine way that we think or behave which tends to happen unconsciously. Just about anything we do that is repetitive in behavior will eventually become a habit, whether we want it to or not.

Habits are typically either good for us, or bad for us, depending on what impact they have on our mental, physical and emotional health. What many people don’t know about habits is that you can learn to master the ones you want to have, and let go of the ones that no longer serve you.

Why Is It So Hard To Stick To Good Habits?

We all know what it feels like to have all the best intentions in the world to change something about ourselves or our lives, only to have our motivation levels waver to the point where we end up with the same result we started with. Only now we feel even less confident about making changes in our lives.

The reason this happens is that most of us approach making changes in the wrong way. There’s definitely a better way to make long-term change that’s based on science and real-life experiences. So let’s check out how it works.

3 Steps To Changing Or Creating Any Habit

Transforming any limiting or destructive habits into ones that get the results you really want is a process. Just like learning to ride a bike, once you’ve got the gist of it, you can use it anytime you like. Every habit you have be it good or bad, has it’s roots in hundreds if not thousands of micro-decisions and actions made over time.

This means that in most cases they took years to mature into the habits you have today. So it makes sense then that it’s going to take consistent decisions and actions to replace bad habits with good ones.

When you think about it, every part of our life is governed by our habits. Our health and fitness – comes from our habits. Our financial circumstances – comes from our habits. Our happiness or misery – comes from our habits. Our success and failure – comes from our habits.

The real question now is how do we go about changing old habits, or creating new ones that will help us to enjoy a better quality of life? It comes down to following a few simple steps.

STEP 1 – Decide On Your New Habit

This is the easy part – just decide what your new habit is going to be. For example, I started a new habit this year of doing cardio 3 times a week which was noticeably missing in my life as I constantly felt out of breath whenever I exerted myself physically.

As soon as I decided what I wanted my new habit to be, I then had to decide specifically what that would look like. As I was already going to the gym 3 times a week doing weights, I simply added a 4 minute high-intensity cardio exercise immediately before starting my weight training. Now, I hate cardio so this was not an easy habit for me to be motivated towards, or get excited about. Which leads me to the next step.

STEP 2 – Follow Through 

While some of the habits you need to change or create may be inspiring for you, the fact is that that will fluctuate depending upon a number of things. The point is, that you won’t always feel like taking action on it so you’re going to need to tap into something else other than passion and that is – start small.

While I still hate cardio, I love feeling fit and healthy so I was willing to start with just 4 minutes, instead of going straight for the 20 minute goal I had set myself. 4 minutes was doable for me from a willingness point of view. As long as you are willing to follow through, then it’s likely to happen. But if your won’t power is stronger than your will power, then good luck.

That’s why I say start with something that is easily doable for you, rather than trying to become an instant over achiever. It doesn’t matter how small you start, it’s just important to get started and get momentum happening. I could just as easily have started with 1 minute of cardio if I’d wanted to but I found 4 minutes to be enough to push me a little, but not feel overloaded.

STEP 3 – Review Your Results

The purpose of reviewing the results of your actions towards creating your new habit is so that you remember to stay focused on it. It’s not to beat yourself if you miss a day, or feel lousy if you reverted back to an old habit.

What you’re looking for is to acknowledge what steps you did take today towards practicing your new habit and give yourself a mental, or even physical pat on the back for taking another step forward. The more you notice even the smallest steps you are taking towards the habit you are creating and feel good about it, the more you are letting your unconscious mind know that making changes in your life is a good thing.

Many people tend to avoid change because at some level they believe that it is more painful to change than to stay where they are. This is an irrational fear that gets carried around inside our unconscious mind and then whenever we are faced with change, we find ourselves getting pulled back to our comfort zone so we don’t have to face our fears.

That’s why it’s so important to take baby steps and ease your way into building new habits. This way, the fear factor and pain avoidance levels stay low so we can slip under the radar and make changes despite what our fears may have to say about it. Then, when you add in congratulating yourself for every step you take, then change becomes something to look forward to.

 The last thing to mention is what to do if you find that you are slipping back into bad habits. The best thing to do is to be as specific as you can, which normally means scheduling your new behavior into your everyday activities. Just by making it part of your daily routine with a specified time and action, it makes it very real.

Then, don’t let yourself off the hook. Sure, life happens and things change, but if your new habit is important to you, then you’ll make it a priority instead of making excuses. Making an excuse once is okay – after that, you are being too soft on yourself.

A little bit of accountability goes a long way, as does self-discipline. Even if your new habit is time-consuming, do 1 thing towards it every day, even if it’s not exactly what you want to be doing. For example, if you want to write 5 pages of a novel each day and you are short on time then write a single paragraph, or even just 1 page and leave it at that. Then get back into the routine the next day.

Always remember to set yourself up for long-term success no matter what ventures you undertake. That means always working with what you have and focusing on doing at least 1 thing every day, no matter how big or small, towards creating your new habit.

Changing any habit that no longer serves you will change you life – that is a given. The only question is when are you going to start?