One thing I have noticed on CLM website and in dating a few Chinese women in China in particular, many of us are focusing on the result - that is marriage! But I'm still wrestling with this idea - I’m trying to work out what kind of person would you have to be to be successful in life-long inter-cultural marriage!

For me, the journey is the most important thing. I believe that you must be constantly moving in the right direction, to evolve slowly rather than have some sudden miraculous adaptation that instantly sprouts overnight after the vows are said and the paperwork signed and the baiju drunk!

What is the type of person who succeeds in this? Are they lucky? Are they talented? Are they scientifically or biologically more adept than me? Or do they just break enough entrenched ’habits’ in their life to create enough of a groundswell for fundamental change.

strange as this sounds, this is actually what is happening! - my current situation is a consequence of the habits, feelings and beliefs that I have held onto over my life!

And I do have a choice - continue on the same habits to create my current reality - or try to modify them for 'good'...both in thought and deed!

For me, being a good person is habit. You have to work on it every day! And indeed, our habits shape our lives and give us outcomes - the reason you are the way you are is because your habits force this!

We all have habits that we do each day - we might not be aware of how intrenched they are or how they really shape our life - but they are immutable rivers through our life and we must be aware of them is we want to change their flow!

What do i mean? Everyday, we get out of bed and have the same cycle of going to the bathroom, getting dressed, making breakfast and heading to work. Or, we take the same path around the supermarket, eat the same foods, make the same decisions about how we might spend our leisure time. Most of our daily decisions are just habits!

Some of us might disguise a habit as cultural, traditional or societal obligation - believing that we must behave in a certain way! Maybe, we decide that something is our favorite or has some benefit associated with it (it’s healthier, it makes me look better, it's traditional so it must be good!).

And are also pretty good at finding habitual excuses - not enough time, too old to learn or too tired to do it! After all, that is what a habit is, a regularly repeatable task or situation we do without question! An automatic response to a given situation!

These habits...the ones that shape our lives are what we call ’keystone habits'. They are the habits that keep us from changing!

For example, many people have a habit of eating or drinking something every day! Take coffee - my friend has a 10 cups a day coffee-habit and he believes that he cannot really start his day without a coffee! He believes that it makes him irritable if he doesn't drink one! He cannot think properly and he is slowed down by not consuming copious cups, strong and black each day! But, on a weekend, he doesn't drink coffee - he sends time with his family and he is not irritable! He plays with his daughter all day, goes shopping, cleans the house, never runs out of energy! He doesn't need coffee to have his objectives!

The great thing about keystone habits is that you can change a habit and make it life changing! Say for example, I want to lose some weight - it will be better for my health, make it easier and more comfortable to move around, increase my energy and my libido, reduce my risk of disease and change my body image of myself! All good things! Now I could really focus on going on a strict diet - i have good intentions of halving my calorie intake, of weighing myself each day and plotting my weightloss on a graph, writing a target of being a certain weight by a certain day! And if I reach that target, I will rejoice, reward myself with chocolate and probably go back to the same damaging attitudes and experiences! Because I won, I was successful and I look and feel great!

Worse still, if I don't reach my target...say for example I reduce my weight by a significant amount - but not large enough (compared to my target) then I have achieved many of my goals in terms of health outcomes - but I ’failed’ in my target goal! I am not successful, I will revert to my old habits and return eventually to my current status - with the added burden of not being able to achieve a target!

The goal model is a pretty poor one - A much better 'habit' to develop might be whenever I think I want to put something in my mouth to eat or drink - if I have the conscious decision to see if there is a healthier option...if I reach for a sugar drink, wouldn't just water be better? If there is some delicious cake available, wouldn't a smaller serve be better? Or maybe deciding you wont actually have it now! When I go shopping, would choosing more vegetables be better than lots of carbohydrates? Snack - sugary sweet or fruit?
You can see that this response would have a longer term better overall effect that just hitting a score on a graph or buying certain foods because my diet says I must (but not actually believing the diet will last after the target is reached!). A stronger keystone habit would allow me to create a better lifestyle that would sustain my life objective longer! This result is cumulative, additive and supported long term...without obsessing over small details.

You see that if I did the same with body movement - choosing to take the stairs rather than the elevator, walking to work rather than taking a taxi or the nearest bus-stop, modifying leisure-time habits then my complete life would be different!

The important lesson here is that if we want to change an aspect of our life, we must change the ’habits’ that lead to that outcome. Remove the keystones of poor outcomes and replace them with better habits that will sustain a longer change! Instead of embarking on a radical change but not re-establishing new habits, change a keystone habit that will lead to sustained change for ever!

Think about this - is your current ’fate’ an outcome of your habits? Is your current view on your world and your life because of how you start your day, the actions you automatically take without thinking? Do you challenge what you do every day?

So, my question to you is this! Are you in the habit of being a marriage-eligible person in a cross cultural partnership? Are you daily making small changes that expand your horizons and give you insight into the other culture...or are you blindly waiting for ’love’ to happen and then you will deal with it then and there?

Now it's over to you! What is it you are waiting for? Are you setting demobilising goals and dreams or are you becoming the person it takes to make that goal a lifetime reality.