Making Change Easier

Making Change Easier

Cindy Gockel, B.S. Health Sciences; Scottsdale Healthcare community health educator

It’s early in the year, and I bet you’re either actively making a change in your life, or you’re thinking about making a change, or you started doing something differently but found it was harder than you thought and have since “fallen off the wagon”.  Often we say we don’t have enough discipline or that we don’t have enough motivation to keep doing the new behavior.  The truth is, what we really need is a more robust plan.  We need a comprehensive change plan that includes more strategies than just exerting our will power.

Does your change plan account for the influence exerted by your family, co-workers and the people in your wider social circles?  All these people influence your choices, either for your benefit or your detriment.   These people are either your friends or your accomplices.    Friends keep you on track.  They encourage and support your new behaviors.  Accomplices want you to stick with your old, unhealthy behaviors.  Sometimes your friends, the people you enjoy spending time with, are actually powerful accomplices.  You need to correctly identify who’s a friend and who’s an accomplice.  Even more than that, you need to make sure you have more friends than accomplices.  Sometimes that means having a conversation with your accomplices to let them know the specific actions you want them to do, or not do, to support your new behaviors.  If they can’t do what you ask, you may need to distance yourself from their influence.  To have more friends than accomplices, you may also need to make new friends that already support your new behaviors and values.

For additional strategies to make change easier, check out the book “Change Anything:  The New Science of Personal Success”, or go to their website www.changeanything.com.