The Elastic Band Principle Of Change

I want you to picture something.

Imagine you have an elastic band around your wrist.

You pinch the elastic band and you pull it away from your wrist about three inches.

Then you let go.

What happens?

Elastic band snaps back into your wrist right?

Correct.

It snaps back to it’s baseline. It’s default.

The stretching process took it somewhere, but then SNAP – back to where it is normally.

Now listen to what I am about to say next because this is a real, real game-changer…

The vast majority of personal development techniques and exercises are like pulling the elastic band away from your wrist.

For a while they work…

Then SNAP, you’re back to normal. Back to your default.

Same goes with diet or fitness programs.

You go on one (elastic band stretched away from wrist)…

Then SNAP…you fall off the wagon and go back to your normal eating habits after a while. Back to your default.

Maybe you’ve bought business training products in the past.

You buy the program and maybe even take a little action (elastic band pulled away from wrist)…

Then SNAP…you give up after a while and it gathers dust or space on your hard drive and you don’t progress.Why?

Why when we stretch ourselves do we often  snap back to some kind of default position.

The comfort zone? Kinda.

But it goes deeper than that.

It’s because of your identity – the way you see yourself.

We behave in ways that are consistent with how we see ourselves.

See yourself as a procrastinator?

You’ll procrastinate.

See yourself as someone who gives up on diet programs?

You’ll give up.

Don’t see yourself as an entrepreneur?

You’ll likely not see business programs through to completion.

Chances are you’ll avoid marketing yourself heavily.

Your identity – this picture in your head of who you think you are, what you can do, what you can’t do, what you will do, what you won’t do –  this is your default position.

And most people are trying to create change by either forcing it or using techniques that almost cover up the way the person really feels about themselves.

For example…

The person looking to lose the muffin top belly tries to use willpower (force) to stop eating sugary treats.

But buried deep in their mind they still see themselves as someone who LOVES sugary treats and is going to gorge the second the program is over (probably before then).

Or they might try and use a technique that gets them to stop craving sugary treats in the present moment…and it may work.

But, again, buried deep in their mind they still see themselves as someone who just loves nose diving into a tub of ice cream and know they are going to do it soon.

The willpower or the technique just act as a mask for how they see themselves. And how they see themselves is how they will behave over the long term.

Self image, your identity, will dictate your behaviour more than anything else.

Go and buy all the transformational programs in any niche you want…

…if you see yourself as someone who gives it a half hearted attempt and gives up – you have a problem that no course will fix.

It’s become very, VERY clear to me that the biggest shifts occur in someone not when you give them a technique or an exercise…but when you change the way they see themselves.

Picture this…

You’re walking down the street and someone drops an iron out the window and it conks you on the head.

Unlucky, yes.

Weird, definitely.

But it happens.

You wake up in hospital with zero memory of who you are, what you’ve done before, what you’re scared of…

…the nurse tells you that you’re the adventurous type, scared of nothing, and that from the research they found on you you were the most courageous person alive.

She lied.

But you don’t know that.

And the chances are you’ll go out into the world believing you are full of courage and adventure and acting like and doing things that the old you, before that blessed iron, would never have done.

Why?

Because of the way you see yourself.

Because of your identity.

This isn’t just a story. This happens. People with brain trauma wake up with no recollection of who they are, are told something from the past that isn’t true and they start behaving as though it was true.

Gets you thinking doesn’t it?

And so answer me this…

How do you see yourself now?

What do you believe about yourself?

Do you actually believe you are an entrepreneur who can grow their business?

Do you believe you are capable of getting in shape?

Whatever your goals are – do you believe you are the type of person who can achieve them?

Or do you see yourself as a procrastinator, a failure, someone who doesn’t deserve to be successful or anything else that won’t take you to where you want to be and will snap you, consistently, back to a default position that doesn’t serve you?

Your identity plays a bigger part in the results you get in life than pretty much anything else.