By now, most of us are aware of the benefits of eating healthier, exercising more, and decreasing stress. And yet how many of us make these habits part of our daily routine? You two in the back can put your hands down now! For the rest of us, we struggle and slip back into too much of this and not enough of that. This reality reveals the gap between “knowing” and “going” with healthier behaviors. So how do we get unstuck and make the shift from know to go?
The secret to this stuckness lies in understanding the power of familiarity and the challenge of change. From studies on quitting smoking, Prochaska and DiClemente revealed the process of change is more than a simple shift, but a series of stages. Change begins with the acknowledgment that the status quo is in some way harmful to our well-being. Even with this acknowledgment, we tend to fall into “yes, but” - yes, we recognize the need to change, but the benefits of the current behavior outweigh the potential future benefits of the change. This current gains/future benefits hill seems like an insurmountable mountain. The sweetness of the chocolate cake or ease of the elevator ride today are simply more tangible than possibly feeling healthy and well in some undetermined future.
What is needed to grasp a future state and pull it into the present moment? Several factors increase our likelihood of success. Three pillars of change include motivation, skills and knowledge, and a supportive environment. The more this triad trends in our favor, the more likely we are to begin the journey into health and wellness. Motivation may begin from outside (a cheaper health insurance premium or a persistent partner!), but to be sustained, needs to find a foothold within. But wanting something is not enough - knowledge and skills are needed to turn a want into action. Finally, being the odd man out tends to prove too powerful and the gravitational pull of the crowd can draw us back to the familiar. Surrounding ourselves with persons who bring cheers for success and accountability for slips provides a “wind at our back” to continue, especially with the steepness of the early learning curve.
With a foundation of the three pillars of change in place, SMART goals create concrete steps along the path. “Specific” transforms the want into a tangible action. “Measurable” provides the metric for progress and success. “Attainable” clarifies the necessary knowledge and skills to act. “Realistic” invites a gut check on our willingness to take the step. Finally, “timely” defines when we put the plan into action and an urgency to achieve a target. Together, a series of well-crafted SMART goals places us on a step-by-step progression free from ambiguity and onto a sustainable path.
Mindfulness undergirds all the above change factors with the clarity of awareness. Any successful change begins with awareness of where we currently reside. Mindfulness invites change by replacing self-criticism with a realistic assessment of our current state. Once free from the tyranny of self-criticism and doubt, we can access a playful curiosity to experiment with healthier behaviors and identify those that move us forward from those that keep us stuck. We also more easily recognize the conditions that undermine or reinforce our forward momentum.
Taken as a whole, understanding the process of change, the three pillars, SMART goals, and mindfulness create a fertile ground from which to make the move from know to go!
