For anyone who tries to change something for the better in their lives, it seems to take forever before they see any results. This is because our habits and ways of thinking don’t change quickly. And we don’t want them to. Imagine that these were easy to change and that they could be changed every few hours. After a short time you would lose your sense of who you were. You wouldn’t be able to tell your new experiences from the old. And you would cease being able to function effectively.

So be grateful for gradual change. Work with it.

One way that I personally use this fact to my advantage is to use a daily checklist of things that I want to work on. Right now my daily list looks like this:

How many times today did you:

1. Smile at others.

2. Show appreciation for someone for what they did for you.

3. Make someone feel important / allow them to talk about themselves without interrupting them.

4. Try to prove you were right or win, even in something trivial.

5. Tell someone why their idea won’t work.

6. Use another person’s name when greeting them.

7. Talk to others in terms of their interests (instead of your own) and really listen to them?

Quite a list. Most days I don’t score all that well. But I’m not discouraged. Now I’m more aware of what I need to change, and I can focus on these skills and not worry too much about the other 1,398,641 things that I might get wrong on any given day.

I’m making progress, and it certainly isn’t dramatic. But it is progress and I know that the changes I make in this way will last.