When it comes to how people act, my year’s teaching and coaching have helped me understand what people tend to do and why they do it. Understanding why someone does something can be a powerful skill to have. As a life coach, I cannot change a person; however, I can find out your current behavior patterns and predict what needs to be done to enact the change you seek. Over the years, I have worked with many cultures, age groups, and different personalities. In each group, some behaviors and patterns are typical, and knowing that, I have developed ways to exploit their current behavior to become more primed and ready for growth.

The entire premise of our behaviors as humans is rooted in our environment. We are born not knowing a thing about the world, and we have to gain knowledge of our environment and adapt to it. Simply being able to adapt to your environment will increase your chances of survival. What is happening with current behavior is that it is evolving into something that is personal and doesn’t reflect the rest of the world. Living a comfortable life is more accessible now, more than ever. If you are cold, you can buy a coat. If you are hungry, you can go to the store or restaurant. If you are tired, you can find a hotel to sleep in for the night. Life, in general, has become more accessible. Regardless of your financial circumstance, you can have your basic needs met with minimal effort.

Knowing that you can have a life that is not difficult and easy to attain is setting many people up for failure. I have spoken about complacency before, and our human behavior is now lazier than ever before. People will work 8 hours a day and then spend the rest of the time behind the television or sleeping. This might not be your situation, but the reality is it is the life that many people are living. What this is doing to these people is making them comfortable but not happy. The moment a person’s chosen comfort is not met, then that is when change starts to happen. People do not change because things are good; people change because things are bad.

The pain of change is what brings about a new part of someone’s life. When a person is going through a change, they have to put in more conscious efforts to create a new standard for their life. Growth is uncomfortable. Just like a baby or animal that is teething, we go through a similar process when we seek to change.  What tends to stop lasting and beneficial change are the behaviors we hold onto. These behaviors can be associated with habits, and they are the reason behind all the things that are or aren’t in our life. So simply knowing how people behave and go through life can help them change in accordance with what they want out of life.

One of the most important reasons people change their behaviors is because they are not happy. Happiness has the power to help people grow and change for their benefit. If you are doing something that doesn’t make you happy, then it is highly likely that you will stop or not continue with that action/task for a long. If you do, then that is where you will fall into a pit of negative emotions that do not serve you. Some people even become complacent with the fact and accept their life for what it is. These people are the ones that are most difficult to reach. I simply cannot help a person who is living a life below their expectations. A person must seek/want to change before I can step in and help them. They have to realize that their life is not going how they would like it to be and put in the effort to change their circumstances. That is the first step in my being able to help a person start the journey to uncovering what behaviors are influencing their life and mindset.

We live in a world where our behaviors must match the world around us. We have to get jobs to pay for our clothes, food, shelter, etc. However, simply working a job that enables us to attain our basic needs does not make us happy. The way the world works is not conducive for us to live an abundant life. Society demands that you conform to its standards and be a cog in the makeup of the machine that allows the world to work. However, what the world needs you to do may not be what you want to do in the world. This discrepancy is not conducive to our goals and personal happiness. This is where human behavior becomes a factor in what a person will attain in life.

There is a reason behind all the things we do in life. Finding out why you do things can help you find out why you do not do something. Naturally, the human mind is negative, and the body sends signals to expend the least amount of effort for any given task. As you can imagine, the current setup for how humans behave is not indicative of abundance and growth. The current human behavior is set up to be, “If it is good for us, how much work is needed in order to attain it?”. If it requires a large amount of work and nothing to gain, like fun, money, or pleasure, it becomes more likely that the goal will not be reached.

So how does a person increase their chances for success and modify their current behaviors? The short answer is that you have to become accountable for everything you do and do not do. If you cannot do this for yourself, then that is where teachers, mentors, and coaches come into play. Have you ever wondered why we send our kids to school? Why can’t we just teach a kid how to read a give them all the textbooks of the knowledge they need to know?  We know that is not how children learn, so we structure learning to be effective for the age group. The same has to be true for adults when they are seeking to implement changes in their life.

Human behavior denotes that there will be a typical outcome to a specific stimulus. I will not go into detail because there are too many avenues to address; however, I will say that people are predictable and can be read easily once their behaviors have been uncovered. When I have their behaviors noted, I start to change them with subtle variants that do not scare them away from the change. I like to think of it as falling asleep. Sleeping tends to be slow, smooth, steady, and natural. With that being said, if you can find a way to alter your current behavior in a way that is not abrupt, then that change has a greater chance of becoming your new natural behavior. For example, if you find yourself in a constant negative mindset, simply saying to think positively will not change your thinking.

In closing, humans have become predictable and lazy. A great example currently is how many people are unemployed. People have realized that they can stay at home and get paid the same as if they went to work. Now there is a shortage in the workforce because people choose the easy road. Regardless if this is a wise decision or not, human behaviors point to the obvious choice. So how can a person begin to alter their natural behavior, tendencies, and reasoning to promote growth? The answer is to change the way you think. To change your mindset towards the behaviors you hold, you have to want the change first. When you decide you want that change, you should choose to invest in yourself and hire a coach to help you towards the life you want to be living.

Until then,

Michael Rearden

CEO of Reven LLC.