Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

The first step to behavior change is acknowledging the existence of a mindset misalignment. A mindset misalignment is the result of being incongruent with the 5 elements that define your mindset. As a result, your thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and values drive unwanted behavior.

For example, if you value your health, but consistently eat unhealthy and exhibit other unhealthy behaviors, you will have negative thoughts about your health. These negative thoughts will drive your perception of how difficult it is to be healthy. This will then drive emotional eating and other counterproductive behaviors.

Recognizing this misaligned pattern in your mindset is sometimes difficult. Often it takes someone looking from the outside in to provide candid feedback. Even then it still may take an “aha” moment or life altering event to get you to acknowledge this. However, once you do acknowledge the existence of a mindset misalignment, you can follow these 3 simple steps to begin the process of changing it.

3 Steps to Fix a Mindset Misalignment

1. Start with the minimum viable change (MVC). A MVC is something that only slightly pushes you out of your comfort zone. Something like waking up 10 or 15 minutes earlier than normal. Whatever it is, make sure it’s measurable, easy to start right away, and the difficulty can be incrementally increased.
   
2. Get someone to agree to be your accountability partner. Let them in on the details of your mindset misalignment. Explain your MVC and how that MVC is measured. Then empower them with the access into your life to hold you accountable for keeping the promises you make.
   
3. Develop and then execute a plan for the progression of your MVC. For example, if you start by waking up 10 minutes early, will you increase this to 20 minutes after 30 days or 60 days? How will you then keep adding additional 10-minute increments over time? What is the ultimate goal, working your way up to waking up at 5am for example? In addition, what other MVCs can you layer on top once you get the wheel of your first MVC spinning effortlessly? Don’t make these decisions on the fly, plan them out with your accountability partner, and then let your partner hold you accountable to this plan.