Welcome back! In a previous blog I chatted about my philosophy of moderation in all things (except smoking). Now, I want to chat about how to change unhealthy habits for healthy ones and achieve that moderation thing.
So, you have thought and thought and finally come to a decision- it’s time to change whatever habit has been bugging you. The scientifically minded among us would cause that phase “Proaction”-deciding what you want to change.
But wait! How do you change? You know you have a habit you don’t like, but now what? OK, that’s the next phase-“Perception.” You have to get some data to figure out the details of what changes you need to make. First: perceive what your life is like now, then perceive what your life would be like without the habit you don’t like. Then, perceive how much of each of your life’s precious resources of self, time, effort, energy, emotion, intellect, property, and people you have available and will have to allocate to change from your unhealthy habit to a healthier one instead.
Next comes “Planning.” Take some time with this step and be absolutely certain you have a good design for almost all the steps you will need to take to use all your resources and change what you want to change. Note, I said a good design and not a practically perfect design and I said almost all the steps. Why, because I want you to keep moving and not get stuck in the paralysis of analysis that bogs a lot of people so far down in the planning phase that they never move on to the Preparation phase.
Once you have a reasonable plan in place, start getting things ready and prepare your resources as much as you need to move on to the “Practice!” phase. Here is where we separate the women from the girls. Now is the moment you put all that proaction, perception, planning, and preparation into practicing your new healthier habit moment to moment and day to day with full intensity.
This moment to moment and day to day stuff is the persistence phase.
Finally, to get yourself to the practically perfect performance of your new you , you have to promote to yourself and everyone around you the fact that you are changing for the better and you fully intend to make yourself Great! All the time!
So that’s it. 7 Steps to Be a Healthier You.
In my next blog, we are going to get specific about helping those of you who need it change that smoking habit of yours.