As the leader of this ever-building movement of Family First Entrepreneurs, I feel a duty to be on the cutting edge and to gather information pertinent to our group.  My best resource has always been reading for information.  I’m currently reading a book called Influencer by Kerry Patterson.  It is a case study about how famous and successful “Influencers” changed behavior patterns in the people they helped.

As growth-minded entrepreneurs we all have aspects of ourselves that we wish were different. This is true of our family lives and our business lives, and often the same problems show up in both places and are ready and willing to undermine us.

There are times in my daily life when I find myself feeling discouraged because my attempts to affect behavior changes do not work, or they leave me feeling uneasy or unhappy.  I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

Last night in my reading, I came across a gem from this book that I would like to share.  One of the keys they have unlocked in their study is that if you make unhealthy behavior intrinsically unsatisfying and healthy behavior intrinsically satisfying, then change occurs naturally and it lasts.  That makes total sense to me.

The first step is to change how you think about an unhealthy behavior. Make it unsatisfying.  Then when you change your behavior, the second step would be to make the new behavior give you a feeling of satisfaction.  That strengthens your natural resolve to follow through. Instead of trying to put a round peg through a square hole, you simply change the hole to a round one.

Let’s take this idea to the real world and see how it relates to us.  You have heard from me before that many of us don’t have an earning problem, we have a spending problem.  If we want to change that, we must first address the satisfaction we get from spending, and shift it to getting satisfaction from saving and investing.  Second, we will need to become dissatisfied with non-serving, unnecessary spending because it will undermine larger and more satisfying feelings we get from things that having surplus money can buy—time with the family and options as opposed to obligations.

As you battle with making changes in your personal, family or business life, remember to shift the satisfying feeling and the magic will begin.  You can do it in almost any situation where you’re not serving yourself and your goals.  This is a skill we can all develop; we can change, grow and align ourselves more closely with our goals as Family First Entrepreneurs.  Good luck.