Tag Archives: behaviour change

Doing what you love (again and again)

July 12, 2016 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

One year ago, I published my first ever blog post. As I wrote then, this blog is a deep passion of mine.

Today, I’ve published over 15 000 words, or about half a non-fiction book.

I’ll be honest. It’s been hard.

Hard to start writing when there is so much else that could be done. Hard to persist with writing when I debate what to write about. And hard to come back to writing when I feel what I’ve written could have been done better.

What’s kept me going is an intense energy and feeling inside of me. An energy that comes from doing what I’m passionate about, and a feeling that it would be even harder to give up doing what I love.

It’s important to understand willpower isn’t something that is ever out of your reach.

Instead, it’s something that grows inside of you when you find the courage, and make the commitment, to do what truly excites you.

Why healthy living can’t wait for tomorrow

June 28, 2016 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

The biggest problem with the, “I’ll just eat cake today and start eating well tomorrow” mindset, is that it assumes it will be just as easy to change tomorrow as it is today.

It’s not.

Decades of research finds that today’s decision is connected to tomorrow’s behaviour. When you choose to behave in a certain way today, you increase the likelihood that you will behave that way habitually (without conscious thought) the next time you find yourself in the same situation.

Our choices define our habits. And our habits define who we are.

To start choosing what’s important over what’s easy, it helps to:

  1. Find your motivation: Ask, how does each behaviour contribute to the person that I want to become, and why does that truly matter to me? If you’re not feeling motivated to change, you need to keep digging, or explore a new behaviour.
  2. Be mindful: When you find yourself about to engage in an old habit, breathe calmly and recognise the unhelpful thoughts or emotions that are driving the behaviour. Once you understand what’s driving the behaviour, it’s easier to separate yourself from it.
  3. Understand habits: Remind yourself that this decision not only affects who you are today. It also affects who you are tomorrow.

How you choose to do anything, is actually how you choose to do everything.

10 ways to reduce your calorie intake without thinking about calories

May 16, 2016 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment
  1. Use smaller plates and bowls.
  2. Replace short, wide glasses with tall, narrow ones.
  3. Use smaller spoons.
  4. Throw out the lolly jar (or replace it with a fruit bowl).
  5. Place healthy foods at the front of the refrigerator, and less healthy foods at the back.
  6. Repackage foods sold in large packages into small containers.
  7. Always put food into a plate or bowl, so you can better see how much you are actually eating. Never eat straight from the package.
  8. Snack only at the table, and only on a clean plate.
  9. Put everything on your plate before you start eating, and don’t go back for seconds and thirds.
  10. When serving your meal, try dishing out 20% less than you think you might want before you start eating. You probably won’t miss it.

Perhaps the easiest way to change your behaviour, is to change your environment.

[Hat tip to Wansick.]

Why eating healthy isn’t as hard as you think

January 5, 2016 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

First, consider these 3 dinners:

  1. Cheese pizza, soft drink and chocolate.
  2. Beef lasagne.
  3. Vegetable and lentil salad with quinoa, kale and freshly grown herbs.

Next, notice these 2 observations:

1. There are some nutritional benefits to eating the beef lasagne. It contains protein, B vitamins, iron and zinc, and is more nutritious than option 1.

2. We don’t need to eat a meal like the vegetable and lentil salad every single night. Healthy eating is compatible with a wide range of foods, because one unhealthy food in small amounts doesn’t make a diet unhealthy.

This all means that good nutrition is far from black and white.

Thinking about food in terms of all or nothing only creates a cycle of aspiring to eat perfectly (unnecessarily), and beating ourselves up when we don’t.

Instead, good nutrition is best viewed as a scale, and best achieved like this:

Step. By step. By step. By step.

The goal is actually not to eat like someone very different to you.

The goal is to eat better than you did yesterday.

What to do when change is hard

December 14, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

Why is changing a behaviour or emotional response so difficult?

Research shows that it’s often because we value the very part of us that causes it.

Some examples.

Those who struggle to change:

  • impulsive behaviour, value being spontaneous.
  • being perfectionist, value having drive and ambition.
  • feeling depressed, value self-reflection.
  • worrying or anxiety, value showing responsibility.
  • looking for faults, value being serious.
  • being dependant on others, value being caring.

2 thoughts on this research.

First, when change is hard, start by looking inside yourself. Changing a behaviour or emotional response requires both:

  1. An understanding of your current way of thinking. What thoughts are causing this resistance to change?
  2. The development of an alternative worldview. One that supports the change you seek.

Second, also well worth asking: should I change here?

If it is actually my strengths that are causing my unhappiness, what’s stopping me from choosing to wholeheartedly accept myself, exactly as I am?

Remember, change starts from within.

And sometimes, the change required isn’t about avoiding or fixing. It’s about accepting, and embracing, all of you.

How to create a healthy habit

December 1, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Step 1: Decide on a health goal that you would like to achieve.

Step 2: Choose 1 small and simple behaviour that will get you towards your goal. Make sure it is something that you are confident you can do on a daily basis.

Step 3: Plan when and where you will do this action. Be specific and choose both a time and a place that you will come across every day of the week.

Step 4: Each day you encounter that time and place, do the action. If it helps, keep a daily record you can mark off whilst you are forming the new habit.

Step 5: Continue until you are doing this new behaviour without even having to think about it. Research suggests that for most us of, it will be no more than 10 weeks.

The important thing to note is that getting healthier doesn’t require huge amounts of time, attention or motivation.

But it does require a desire to change, and a plan to actually make it happen.

6 myths we are told every time we watch The Biggest Loser

November 16, 2015 By in Love your body Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
  1. If I am overweight, there is something wrong and shameful about my body.
  2. If I am overweight, I need to lose weight to find confidence, happiness and self-worth.
  3. Weight loss is easy. If I can’t lose weight, there is something wrong with me.
  4. Extreme dieting and overtraining, even though they increase my risk of nutritional deficiencies and injury, are necessary practices because they result in weight loss.
  5. Weight loss is the most important outcome of exercise and eating.
  6. I am defined by the number I see on the scales.

Each of these assumptions are incorrect, ineffective and dangerous.

They do not just undermine why, and how, we should be striving to eat better and exercise more.

They also, very worryingly, reinforce the idea that changing who we are is a requirement for us to be self-accepting, confident and happy.

If you really think about it, why should this ever be true?

We now know that:

The Biggest Loser is now well over a decade behind the scientific world, which suggests that a better and healthier way to manage your weight in the long-term is, ironically, to stop making it all about your weight.

The desire to be the biggest loser undermines our ability to feel like, and be, a winner.

One of the easiest ways to get you to exercise more

November 9, 2015 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Is to stop saying “I will” and start asking “will I?”

“I will” implies requirement. You end up doing it only because you should do.

“Will I?” implies choice. You end up doing it only because you want to.

Research shows that simply asking ourselves “Will I go the gym?” is significantly more motivating than saying to ourselves “I will go to the gym”.

“Will I go to the gym?” engages the part of us that is motivated to go from within.

“I will go to gym” shuts the door on that very part from coming through.

If you want to change long-term, step 1 is to find the part inside of you that wants it.

Step 2, however, is all about giving it a choice to keep on coming back.

A simple tip for achieving your health goals

October 19, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , 1 Comment

When we say we’re going to make a health change, we typically only concentrate on the ‘what’. Exercise more, meditate more or eat more fruit and vegetables, are some of the many examples.

Of course, achieving the ‘what’ will soon become a constant struggle, a battle between our conscious and unconscious mind.

A better solution is to not only call out the what, but the where, the when and the how:

“I will exercise, at the gym, on Monday after work, on my drive home.”

“I will meditate, in my bedroom, at 6:40am on Tuesday and Thursday, by setting my alarm.”

“I will eat an apple, in the park, during my Friday afternoon walk, by placing a reminder in my calendar.”

We clearly state the where, when and how for our work, time with friends, extra-curriculum activities, and favourite TV shows.

Interesting that we so often forget to apply the same simple concept for our health goals, too.

7 beliefs that commonly lead to weight gain

September 10, 2015 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , Leave a comment
  1. I should feel guilty when I eat something I shouldn’t have.
  2. Food is a good way to overcome loneliness or a bad mood.
  3. Eating healthily means I have to give up my favourite foods entirely.
  4. I simply cannot control my weight because I love to eat.
  5. It is punishment to eat certain foods like fruits and vegetables.
  6. I’ve blown my diet once I’ve eaten something bad.
  7. I need to eat the foods that I enjoy the taste of right now.

Our everyday beliefs about food impact our likelihood of gaining weight.

If eating well is a struggle, start by understanding and then changing the story that you are telling yourself.

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