4 questions for when you’re ready to make a change

The turn of a new year is often a time when we think about introducing new habits or making changes. You might be in a place in your life where you feel ready to make some changes in your habits or daily routines, but aren’t quite sure what those changes are. Maybe something feels off or dissatisfying, or maybe you’ve been thinking about trying something new for a while. Maybe you’re excited about starting new habits or breaking bad ones as we enter a new year.

The questions below are part of a coaching tool called “Start/Stop/More/Less”, which is designed to get you thinking about the changes you’d like to make in your life. If you feel ready to make some changes, try answering the questions below. For the best results, reflect on each of these questions, rather than just on one of two of them.

1) What would you like to start doing? Reflect on the things you’re not doing now. What would you like to try to start doing? Consider multiple areas of your life, including work, family, leisure, health. Reflect on what you might want to start doing in those areas. Perhaps you’d like to start incorporating journaling or morning pages into your daily routine.

2) What would you like to stop doing? Reflect on the things you’re doing now that you’d like to discontinue. Consider the habits that cause you stress or feel draining. Maybe you want to spend less time on social media or want to stop staying up too late at night.

3) What would you like to do more of? What are you doing currently that you’d like to do more frequently? Or spend more time on? As above, reflect on multiple areas of your life. Perhaps you’d like to spend more time cooking or getting physical activity. Reflect on what you’re doing currently and what would be a feasible amount to increase that activity.

4) What would you like to do less of? Sometimes it can be hard to eliminate habits entirely! It can be a lot easier to consider reducing the amount of time we spend on something but not completely eliminating it from your behavior. For instance, you might decide you want to get take out less frequently by cutting back from eating out twice a week to only once per week.