Best Of: How to Make Change Stick
15 Oct 2019 · 12 min
In this best‑of episode of the Brendon Show, Brendon Burchard explores why many people struggle to make personal or professional changes stick and offers a concrete, daily‑focused framework to overcome those obstacles. He identifies two primary reasons for failure: a lack of deep, emotionally‑charged motivation (treating change as a casual wish rather than a purpose‑driven goal) and insufficient daily attention to the change. To turn change into a lasting habit, Burchard prescribes a four‑step daily routine: (1) write down the specific change and its purpose each morning on a fresh piece of paper, (2) schedule a concrete action related to the change in your calendar and execute it, (3) measure the outcome at the end of each day using a self‑rating system, and (4) celebrate progress to reinforce dopamine‑driven satisfaction. He ties these practices to broader high‑performance principles, referencing Peter Drucker’s “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” The episode concludes with a call to join his High‑Performance Monthly program for deeper, interactive training and an invitation to share the episode on social media for community engagement and potential rewards.
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Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the Brendon show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes on online to tens of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking on some stages across the world. Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students. So I know you're gonna really enjoy these because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and start practicing some of those high performance habits when you. Well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts in these special episodes here. These are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the Brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please note that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something that I'm suggesting or motioning to or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategy that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I train on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do Q and A and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can Access it at Brendan.com monthly. That's Brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com monthly to get deeper dive training similar to this. So if you like this, you would love that training program. But without further ado, let's jump in right now to one of the Brendon show's best of trainings. Hey, it's Brendan.
I'm always asked, brendan, why can't I Make change stick. Why is it when I have a big goal or a big dream or I know I need to change some behaviors and I start towards them, I just kind of fall off momentum or I don't keep at it.
You know, I have that big New.
Year's goal to stay fit and healthy.
And then it's gone by February, you.
Know, or I want to start that new diet and I break off after a week or a month at it. Or I have this new behavior change. I want to be nicer as a parent or nicer as an employer, or I want to be more kind with other people, but I find myself getting angry and impatient with them all the time. I want to change, but I can't? Why can't I make it stick? Well, this is a session about that. You know, the first two primary reasons most people don't make it stick is a they really didn't want the change. I'm going to assume that's not you, but just let's talk about other people for a moment. You know, have you ever noticed that sometimes that people kind of fool themselves into what they think they want and they don't really want it? Meaning if change isn't sticking in your life, it's because you're being too casual about change. You're thinking, ah, you'd be nice if I lost some weight. Yeah, it'd be cool to, you know, be nicer to people. But it's not a change you really deeply connect with. It's not an ambition, a goal, a dream, a vision, an intention, a purpose that you have identified and you feel emotionally compelled and connected to. It's something you feel like you have to do or you should do, not something you feel compelled to do as a human being. And so sometimes to get change to stick, you need to stick back to your priorities. You need to find out your values, your purpose. Something that is deep inside of you that demands that you do it. Something deep inside that connects you with change and makes you want to do it, that you feel pride into would make you feel alive, it'd make you feel true to who you are and make you feel congruent or a person of integrity to do those things. If change is just something like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do it someday, it's not gonna be important, it's not gonna stick. At least not at the levels in which you do it for a lifetime or you do it at a major level. I would say another reason change doesn't stick for a lot of people is. Is because they don't focus on that change daily. They came up with the idea, they wrote some goals about it. One day they were all excited. They could remember the goals for a couple days, and then the goals went away and they really move on to the next distraction, the next idea, the next thing, and they lose that connection again with the goal, with the dream. And that's the problem. It's just a problem of attention. The first one's a problem of real motivation and connection with the change that you want. The second one is a problem of attention. It just, you know, it kind of passes by. So how do we solve all that? Because I bet you recognize those challenges.
In your own life, don't you?
I mean, hasn't there been some times you wanted to change and you just didn't really connect with it? You don't feel motivated, you didn't focus on it. Well, here's the way to force a change in your life. There's some changes that will come very easy. You'll feel compelled, you'll be driven. But other ones you know you should do. But it's hard. Here's how you make it through those ones. First, write down the change in the goal every single day. Yes.
Write it down.
I don't mean, like, type it in your phone one time and look at it every day. I mean, remember these things. There are pens, remember? Or a pencil. And they used to use a pen and pencil on paper. You know what I want you to do? Bust out that pen of paper and write it down every morning. What I want you to do first thing, get out of bed, drink some water, maybe do some stretching or exercise, if that's your morning routine. And then write down, what's the change? Why do you want it every single morning? And you're like, every morning? Yeah, until it stays. It becomes a habit. It becomes habitual that you're already doing it as a behavior. You need to write it down every single morning. Friend. Should I write the same thing down every morning? I don't know if it comes out exactly the same way every morning that you're writing it down. Cool. But most people, I don't want you to look at the old ones. I want you every morning, blank piece of paper. What's the change I want? Why do I want it every single morning? That is going to reconnect you with it. Write it down every single morning. Second idea, do. Do it every single day. Actually, schedule the change. So you're trying to be nicer to your lover. Schedule something to do for Them every day. Every day actually in your calendar, say okay, from 2:00 o' clock to 2:30, I'm going to sit and I'm going to dream of a new way to be kinder or nicer or do something nice for them. Or if you are trying to lose some weight, you go in advance and you schedule the healthier restaurant where you're.
Going to go eat. You put it in the calendar and.
You go do the action. Eat healthier, right? It has to be something that you do every day. And until you do it every day, your body will keep resisting it. At first it's difficult, but after a period of time you conditioned your body that that's just what you do. Your mind looks forward to it, it anticipates it. When your mind anticipates something and you do it, it releases dopamine in your brain. It makes you happy, satisfied, fulfilled. It makes you feel like, good job. That was a goal.
We did it.
We're a person of integrity. We're excited now. And that's what you do. If you have a change you're trying to make stick, write it down every day. Do it every day. Third thing, you need to measure it every day. At the end of each day, measure yourself. Journal again or create a questionnaire or a self rating system that you measure yourself. How did I do in this category or these categories each day actually measure yourself. It's the oldest statement in the book.
Right from Peter Drucker.
If you don't measure it, you can't manage it. So you need to measure it. So how are you doing if you don't look at it every day? You let yourself off, you know, a couple weeks ago by and you go, oh, I forgot, I'm not even doing it. So it has to be a close of day. At the end of your day, that's.
When you measure the change.
And you want to measure things like how well did I do it? Did I feel connected to it? Is there anything else better that I could have done? And rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.
1.
I was a jerk and I didn't do it. 10 good job, stars, trophies, you know, celebration. That's what you have to do every day. So give those things a try. Look, you deserve to have an extraordinary quality of life. But if every time you start a change you don't stick to it, you can't blame your past, you can't blame today, you can't blame your circumstances. It's ultimately a matter of focus, will and discipline. And so you have to motivate yourself for it. And so you have to focus on it daily. And so do the things we talked about, from writing it to sharing it, to scheduling it, to doing it, to managing it to get a comrade. If you'll do that, you'll start getting momentum and you'll start to find yourself being more of a master of change in your life and in this world where everything is changing, everything is so chaotic. The more that you're able to dance with that and make changes in your own life, the more you'll feel what we call the charged life.
All right, my friend, I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up? Did you love it? If you did, make sure you do me a favor, go out on social media somewhere and share that episode.
You know, just go out, post it.
Somewhere, post yourself, listening to it. Make sure you hashtag the brendanshow because when you do that, I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that on the social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendan.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings.
Like you just heard.
But we do that every single month. And there's some live Q and A, there's. And I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out@brendon.com monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers, in your personal life, in your health. And you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the Brendon show, I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you or listening with you on the next episode of the B r e n d o n show.
Sam.