Why Habits are Hard to Break, and the One Degree Shift – Part Two
 

• Humans want quick and positive step change – i.e. 90 degrees
  
  We all want the quick fix. It is human nature to gravitate towards comfort, and ease. For example, anyone who says that they truly like change is lying, and most if not all of us would probably, if offered the choice of achieving something worthwhile with less or more effort, take the option of less effort. Western civilisation tends to promote the “quick fix”, which is really neither quick, or a fix.
  
  Wanting the quick fix is in itself not necessarily a bad thing, but having the expectation of a quick fix that is not realistic can be very demotivating, if not depressing.
  
  The truth is that 90 degree changes, even if possible (and such changes are extremely difficult to achieve), do not last, due to the law of vacuum – i.e. nature will simply not allow a habit to die, and not be replaced by another habit. Nature will simply drag us back towards the state that we started in, unless we utilise and almost superhuman will daily, each and every day for the rest of our lives. This is simply beyond most of us.
   
• Because of the laws around habit change, and the law of vacuum, 90 degree changes do not work
  
  As we can see, 90 degree changes don’t work, and few of us can manage such major change in the 1st place. The good news is that far smaller change is all that is needed, as long as the change relates to things that really need to be changed. I call this smaller change a “1 degree shift”. A 1 degree shift is far easier and more realistic to achieve, because 1) the effort to make the change is much less, and 2) the law of vacuum is so weak, that is it much easier to maintain the change.

 

• A 1 degree change is all that is possible
  
  There are two key pieces of good news to be stated:
  1) a 1 degree shift is both easier to achieve, and easier to maintain.
  ​2) By going through the exercise of identifying “effective work”, then the 1 degree changes that you want to achieve, regarding yourself, your team, and your business, relates SOLELY to the “effective work” drivers within your business. 
  
  
• The good news is that the RIGHT 1 degree changes at the right time are all that is needed to change, and transform a business
  
  I’m always surprised, if not amazed at the positive difference in business performance that happens as a result of the right one degree changes; particularly if these changes are well spaced out, and are ongoing over time. These one degree changes are the underlying driver of sustainable improvement in any person, team and business. 1 degree changes literally change lives for the better. 
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• How to action these 1 degree changes – i.e. what, and when, as well as how – this is covered in Part Three