Sunday, December 13, 2009

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle


That was the healthy reflection from Sparkpeople. Very timely, when I reread my post yesterday, I saw a pattern that I fall into. After a slip, or maybe a better way of looking at it is an unplanned break from my new lifestyle, I would normally say what the heck, I blew it and give myself permission to go nuts.

But I didn’t go nuts, went right back to my plan of eating sensibly. I was reading on another blog about people who go on the fad diets. You know the ones Optifast, South Beach, Slimfast etc, etc where you lose weight but after a few years its back and more. The key it seems is changing behavior, like Pavlov dogs, where someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than using critical thinking. Therefore, I have to change my behavior so I react to the situation in a more favorable way.

Reaching back to college and my psychology class that means changing my habits via positive reinforcement and repetitiveness. Damn I thought I would never use that crap again. Let me digress, when I had psychology at the end of the class I was a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur. Every chapter I read I saw a part of me. Afterwards, I figured that everyone has a little nut in them, but boy I was wondering about it. Maybe, because I was drinking up a storm and smoking my brains out, had something to do with it.

I am back, reading some stuff on the web it appears that “Key to Changing Habits Is In Environment, Not Willpower” according to a Duke Expert. This I understand. When I stopped drinking I was told to stay away from people, places and things. Therefore, I should never have gone into the evil supermarket. The researcher found out.
“Once you form a habit, it takes willpower to inhibit the triggered response. If you don’t have the energy to override the response, you tend to repeat what you’ve done in the past”. Well I was hungry therefore no energy. This is going to take awhile.

I read all kinds of ways of discovering what motivates specific patterns, and what can be done to change habits and create new life patterns. I boiled it down to the following:

1. Identify the pattern and cycle or awareness.

The first step is recognizing that change is necessary. Just saying I am going to change the habit is not enough of a commitment. I need to actually write it down, on paper, or in this new fangled age this blog. Define what need to be changed.

2. Commit to the change

I read that one key to commitment is my use of language. How many times have I told myself (“I need to lose weight”) or (“I want to lose weight”)? I need to start telling myself (“I will lose weight”). It takes the commitment from a want or a need to an action step

The habit needs to be stated positively. This means I need to focus on what I want rather than what I don’t want. Just saying that I intend to lose weight is more positive than saying that you want to lose weight.

I need to go public with my commitment. This means telling all the key people in my life about the change I am making. Put change in writing. Make a formal contract with myself and post it where my family can see it. Pledging to keep this promise with the same level of commitment I use in promising to tell the truth in court.

How many times have I started losing weight and not telling anyone? Was I just setting myself up for failure? This time is different.

3. Find healthier ways to meet needs

This is the when I am supposed to stop myself in the midst of the bad habit or troubling behavior. They say, the healthy response is to stop, acknowledge and apologize if needed, and then redirect to a healthier choice of behavior. Easier said than done!

To change any habit, I give up my excuses. Stop using them and of course stop trying to come up with new ones. If I am easily tempted, I need admit it. There is something refreshing about stating the truth.

4. Change limiting beliefs

It is said that “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”

When I look at the above it tells me changing habits requires discipline. So off I go to look up disciplines. According to Wikipedia “discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple”. So the root of the word discipline is 'disciple' to me then I am following my spiritual path. Wow I did not expect that.

Back to Wikipedia which tells me self-discipline refers to the training that one gives one's self to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behavior, even though one would really rather be doing something else. What does this mean to me? I guess acting according to what I think instead of how I feel in the moment.

I know when giving up drinking it was because the pain I was enduring was greater than the pain I thought I would endure not drinking. I found pain was an extremely positive motivator. By keeping my life focused not giving up, I achieve success. So this hold true in every area of life. If I do not achieve something, it just means I have changed my mind at some point and stopped being committed to a new outcome.

Enough said for today.

g

No comments:

Post a Comment