Recently I was in a parent session at my son’s school and the teacher shared his 3D approach to teaching. It is so glaringly similar to the approach we take with our clients that I had to share it in a blog post. We blend habit development into all our services. This approach is how we have worked with clients for years to effectively change habits:

Drudgery—This is the blind faith phase when you are doing it by rote because someone you trust tells you it is worth it. You don't believe that it will work, but you trust the person teaching you. This is where the biggest struggle happens. You feel less free and more pinned in the corner. Heads-down forward motion carries you. We tell our clients that it will get worse before it gets better in this phase. If you don't do it, you don't know what you'd do. All you do know is that you can't go back to how you did it before.

Discipline—This is the 'tweener phase when there is more and less of everything. More feeling of freedom, less struggle, more belief in it, less confusion about how it works, more understanding of what part goes where and when to do what. You feel more confident in your ability to carry it through but it hasn't nestled into your heart yet, it's all head. Occasionally you’ll feel a glimmer of belief coming from your heart, but it’s a flash and then you go back to being guided 100% by your head.

Delight—This is where you look forward to your systems and the structure they provide you for your creativity and craft. You realize that you don’t want to work another day without them. You embrace and delight in the systems that you use. You feel freedom like never before. More important than simply trusting the person that introduced and held your hand as you learned the system, you trust yourself and your systems. You own them and are empowered by them. Your heart is completely engaged in your systems, but better yet completely engaged in where your actions are taking you.

All things that are worthwhile take time and patience. The 3D approach teaches and re-teaches you this time and time and time…again.