Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle requires motivation. Motivation is a powerful force when it comes to behavior change. There are two components to motivation: development and nurture. Assuming you've read the previous two steps, Awareness and Skills of the three-step change process, then you're well into the development part. In Step 1 you made a conscious decision to focus on healthy lifestyle changes. In Step 2 you made a commitment to change by developing an action plan. Now you'll focus on the nurturing part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Why does motivation need nurturing? The answer is in the asking of another question. Why do so many New Year's resolutions fall by the wayside despite our best intentions? Emotional resistance is the reason. Emotional resistance comes from deep within our psyche. It's what we use to protect ourselves from change. It doesn't matter that the change will be good for us in the long run. It only matters that the change represents something new and newness is an unknown to be avoided at all costs. Emotional resistance is the number reason for the fizzling of good intentions and it can be fiendishly clever in placing obstacles in our way when we start down the path of behavior change.

Most of the research on behavior change reports that it takes 21 to 30 days for a new behavior to become a habit. There's no need to get hung up on the numbers. It takes however long it takes! Here's a healthy lifestyle tip. It's going to take some time to break a habit! After all, your bad health habits took time to develop and they're going to take time to break. So, go into this change process knowing that time can derail the best intentions and that with that knowledge you can turn time to your advantage.

A lot can happen during a day. Imagine how much can happen during the time it's going to take you to start a new habit. There are so many emotional factors that can inhibit motivation. Emotional resistance can be strong during times of boredom, fatigue and stress but it's strongest during the relapse. Let's face it. There are going to be relapses. Falling off the wagon isn't a big deal but how you handle the fall is. So, decide right now that you're going to have some occasional missteps and plan for how you're going to handle them. Learning how to recognize the signs of emotional resistance will help you to successfully reach your behavior goals. An excellent source for planning how to deal with emotional resistance can be found in Motivate Healthy Habits. Will you allow an unchecked emotional resistance to deflate all the motivation you've developed or will you use it as a learning opportunity for becoming stronger in your determination? Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the future you want for yourself. Don't let anything get in your way!

Along with understanding what emotional resistance is, maintaining a healthy lifestyle change is best nurtured through reinforcement which in everyday language means rewards are given for successful moves toward a goal. There is a massive amount of research on reinforcement theory and the role it plays in behavior change. Reinforcement can be both positive and negative but for now let's stick with positive reinforcement. The basic premise goes something like this. Behavior that is rewarded or reinforced increases in frequency. Reinforcement can be either tangible or intangible and must be meaningful to have any power over behavior change. Rewards are highly subjective. What is motivating for one person might have no effect on another. So, your first order of business is to decide on what types of rewards or reinforcement will work for you. Use the Rewards Worksheet for Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle to start a list of the things that you can use to reward yourself for your successes.

The verb form of the word nurture means 'to support and encourage, as during the period of training or development; foster: to nurture promising musicians'. Rewarding yourself on your progress toward your goals is exactly the kind of support and encouragement you need for a job well done. Whether your reward takes the form of self-praise, a special purchase or a favorite indulgence, be consistent and lavish with your rewards.