At dinner with his family one night, my boyfriend and his father started talking hockey. I was about to tune out when his dad began to talk about how, when it comes to living a good life, we can learn a lot from the game. He went on to explain, quoting Hockey Hall of Famer, Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

This was the first time anything sports-related resonated with me, and since then this powerful quote has stuck with me because it’s so true!

When you have a goal or a dream, but you don’t take a shot at it, you miss the opportunity to score, to win, or to get what you want. In order to fulfill your dream, it’s crucial that you take a chance.

Take Your Shot

The problem for many of us is that we’re afraid to take the first shot. It’s often easier, and feels safer, to keep mulling over an idea or to keep yourself in the research phase. Taking the first step can be scary, because it means opening yourself up to the world and to criticism by others. But here’s the thing — there will always be critics out there, so don’t let them hold you back!

You may feel that something needs to fall into place or you need to make a key decision before it feels right for you to take the leap. But as I’ve said many times before, that is often just an excuse.  Plus perfection does not exist anyway! If you focus on what others think or keep waiting for the elusive “missing” piece, you’ll likely never start anything. And in order to succeed, you must take action.

Yes, you might fail on the first go, but as we know, failing is a part of success. If you believe deeply in your dream and want it to come true, you can’t allow obstacles to stop you.

Instead, it’s critical to look at setbacks as experiences to learn from and as opportunities to re-ignite the spark for your next attempt. Plus another benefit of constantly trying is that you’ll have time to reassess the steps you’re taking to achieve your goal. This means that your output will only get better and better over time. I believe that this type of persistence is what separates the dreamers and the doers.

So if you have a dream, I encourage you to take action! Keep your foot on the gas pedal and try and try again. You have the power to create what happens to you as long as you show up and you do your best.

And if you ultimately do fail, at least you’ll know you tried.

The post You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

What I’ve noticed consistently in my work is this: so many of us want to change how we behave in order to live happier lives and to create lasting change, but we find it so hard to make this happen. We yearn for things to be different, but we often don’t know how to get there, and unfortunately, the advice we typically receive to change our lives — “just follow your dreams” or “just be yourself” or “focus on being positive” — often isn’t constructive enough to help us.

What we really need is a practical way to create behavioral change in our lives so that we are more in alignment with how we want to be living. And that’s where a framework that I call the Seven Behavioral Dimensions comes into play. If you want to live your best, you need to master the Seven Behavioral Dimensions.

Understand Your Behavior, Change Your Life

In my book The Authenticity Principle, I talk in detail about a concept I’ve developed called the Seven Behavioral Dimensions. These dimensions reflect seven behavioral areas in which we make decisions, both consciously and unconsciously, about how to act at any given time.

In particular, all day long you’re deciding both consciously and unconsciously about how you want to behave across seven areas including how you express your emotions, how you communicate non-verbally, how you speak, your appearance, your actions, and more. (You can learn more about them here.)

Understanding how you’re currently behaving in each of the Seven Behavioral Dimensions is an important foundation for understanding what changes you need to make in your life to get you closer to where you want to be. Once you understand the reasons for your behavior, you then have the knowledge to begin making big changes in your life.

Here’s my question for you: how are you currently showing up in each of the Seven Behavioral Dimensions?

Small Behavioral “Nudges” Will Change How You Act and How You Think

In her book, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, Amy Cuddy describes the act of making small behavioral changes as “self-nudging.” She explains that self-nudges are minimal modifications to your behavior, which are intended to produce small psychological and behavioral improvements in the moment (for example, sitting more upright or placing your hands on your hips when speaking — behavior that will lead you to feel more confident — rather than starting with full-blown power posing). They are tiny tweaks with the potential to lead to big changes over time.

Cuddy explains that self-nudges are very powerful because they’re small and require minimal psychological and physical commitment, and the real magic is that while we think our attitudes will change our behavior, the reverse is true as well — attitudes follow from behaviors.

To take this a step further, when you change your behavior, it ultimately changes your thoughts and mindset.

Break Down Your Behavior

Looking closely at how you are showing up in each of the Seven Behavioral Dimensions will help you understand the conscious and unconscious decisions you’ve been making about how you show up. It will also help you connect the dots on where you should be “self-nudging” in order to get closer to being in alignment with how you want to behave.

Think about what you want to have happen in your life and about what’s most important to you. Do you want to attract friends you can be yourself around? Do you want to get your dream job? Do you want to live more authentically? Do you want to better connect with your children? Do you want to live a values-based life?

When you know what kind of change you want to make, then you can use the Seven Behavioral Dimensions to build yourself a practical plan for change. For example, if your goal is to better connect with your children, you might note that you currently spend little time exploring your kids’ passions. Now that you’re aware of your behavior, you can consciously start engaging in activities with your kids that enable you to learn more about their needs and wants.

If your goal is to live a life that reflects your value of kindness, you might note that when you’re stressed at work, you’re letting it affect how you speak to your colleagues (you tend to be very direct when stressed). In the “words you use” dimension, you might decide to invoke a deliberate pause before speaking to be more mindful of the impact of your words.

The key is to start small. Choose a manageable number of incremental changes that will give you small wins and help get you comfortable with living differently. Over time, you can move on to more challenging behavioral adjustments.

So here’s my takeaway question for you: what are the small behavioral nudges you want to make across each of the Seven Behavioral Dimensions?

The important thing to remember is that you are in the driver’s seat when it comes to your behavior. You have all the tools you need to change your life!

The post Want to Change Your Life? You Must Do This appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.