As a speaker and trainer, people often approach me after one of my programs to tell me how excited they are about the strategies they have learned and how they plan to put these ideas into action. When I connect with these people later on and ask how the techniques are working for them, I usually get answers such as “I really planned to use them but then things got so crazy that I never had the chance.” or “I tried them once and wasn’t successful so I gave up.”

Success, like anything else, takes application and practice. Anyone who plays a sport or has achieved expertise in any skill knows that it doesn’t happen the first time. They learn what to do and then apply it over and over again until it becomes easy and natural for them. They would never think of expecting to improve if they didn’t apply what they had learned. However, they think different rules apply to success strategies.

If you want to make a change in your life or career, you must work with positive ideas until you can apply them effortlessly. They need to become part of your operating system. The following tips can help you do this more easily.

• Work On One Thing At A Time – Often people want to change many things and they try to do it all at the same time. This can be overwhelming. Choose one idea and work with it until you gain mastery. Then you can work with another idea until you are successful with it and so on. In this way you can make changes without a lot of stress.

• Determine What The Benefit Will Be To You – It’s great to want to change, but if you aren’t aware of how you are going to benefit as a result of the change, it is easy to get discouraged. How will achieving this change make your life better? What value will it bring to you? It is much easier to stay motivated when you have the answers to these questions.

• Recognize That You Might Initially Feel Uncomfortable – Sometimes people give up working with a new idea because it feels uncomfortable. They don’t want to deal with these negative feelings. Any time you try something new it feels awkward. This is a temporary situation. As you work with the new idea it will begin to feel more natural for you. It is all part of the learning process.

• Commit To Using The Ideas For 30 Days – It is very easy to give up if you don’t achieve instantaneous success. Make a commitment to apply the idea consistently for 30 days. If something happens to interrupt the process, then start again with your 30-day commitment. If you make the commitment at the beginning of the process, you are more likely to achieve your goal.

• Appreciate Your Successes – As you work with the new idea, recognize your successes. Maybe you are trying to deal more effectively with stress. Congratulate yourself when you remember to breathe deeply when you feel your stress starting to increase. When we recognize our small successes it helps us achieve bigger successes.

• Be Patient With Yourself – Don’t be self critical if you find yourself occasionally falling back into old patterns. You have been operating in that manner for years. It is going to take time before you fully integrate the new idea into your life. As you work with it on a consistent basis, you will find that you revert to old patterns less and less frequently.