Are you physically active for 30
minutes every day?
Do you exercise at least three times a
week at a moderate to vigorous intensity for 30 to 40 minutes each
workout?
Do you smoke?
Do you have more than a couple of
drinks a week?
Do you take other drugs or medicine on
a regular basis?
Is your weight what it should be?
Do you eat a well-balanced diet?
Are you able to cope with day-to-day
stress?
Can you deal with big emotional
problems when they arise?
Do you rely on eating, drinking, and/or
drugs when problems arise?
If your answers to these questions
reflect a healthy lifestyle, then you can skip this post. Most of us,
however, have one or more habits that prevent us from achieving our
highest possible levels of fitness and health. In fact, as a society
we could make great strides in public health if we changed several
aspects of the typical U.S. Lifestyle.
If you have thought about changing the
way you live so you can be healthier, then this post can help you.
For those areas in which you have
decided to make a change immediately (preparation), you need to
identify exactly where you are at now, set some long- and short-term
goals, and get professional help (if needed) to determine the
dimensions of your new behavior. For example, what type, how much,
how frequently, and for how long are you going to engage in physical
activity tomorrow? What specific changes are you going to make in
your usual breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks tomorrow?
As you begin to make changes in your
life, don't feel that you have to do it alone, ask for help. Choose
someone who is a good role model for the desired behavior and who
will be supportive of you as you make changes. Your fitness
instructor, a counselor, or a close friend are good choices for
people to enlist to help you throughout the process.
14 Steps To Changing Negative Behaviors
For Success
- Acknowledge desire to change
- Analyze history of problem.
- Record current behavior.
- Analyze current status.
- Set long-term goals.
- Set short-term goals.
- Sign contract with friend(s).
- List many possible strategies that could be used.
- Select one or two strategies to use.
- Learn new coping skills.
- Establish regular contact with helper.
- Once goal is reached, outline potential maintenance problems.
- Learn new coping skills.
- Maintain periodic contact with helper.
This general plan has several
components, but you won't necessarily use each step for every habit
you want to change. A procedure that
helps you to resolve one particular problem may not work for someone
else, and it may not help you resolve other problems. The steps
outlined above provide a general plan of steps that can be reduced,
added to, or modified depending on what works for you.
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