CREATING CHANGE:
First suggested by Isaac Newton in the 17th century, Sea Captains used a sextant to assist them to set their course by identifying a celestial object, like the sun or the moon or a particular star, to head for a point on the horizon, then recalibrate their course to make adjustments to stay on track as they proceeded toward their destination.
The same idea can be applied for making desired behavioral changes. Often referred to as New Year Resolutions, the arrival of the new year is a good time to “Set Your Sextant” by identifying some goals and setting some plans for how to achieve them.
First, I’d like to invite you to continue to join me in 2017 by reading and responding to my blog articles (http://tamingyouranger.com/dispatch-articles/)
and listening to my podcast ShrinkDifferentRadio.com,
(live on Mondays at 4:30 PM PST) as we create a place for intelligent conversations about Psychology by interviewing specialists in the field and answering your questions on psychotherapy, counseling, coaching and the “Psyche” with my “shrink different” perspective.
I also invite you to ask yourself and, if you are a Therapist, Counselor or Coach, to ask your clients, to take a few moments to consider your life in 2016. You’re a year older now. What positive changes have you made, which have now become part of your life? What did you do differently for those changes to occur? What resistances did you have to overcome in order to implement those changes? Were there any goals you set for yourself last year that you did not achieve? How do you feel about that? Would you like to “Set your Sextant” to achieve any this year?
For the most part, changes in patterns of behavior don’t just “happen”. Developing new patterns and new habits requires a goal (Setting the sextant), intention (recognition of your desire to achieve that goal and of inevitable consequences of not pursuing it), a method and repetition over time, until it becomes a new habit.
In my therapy practice I talk about creating change by focusing on both External and Internal Consequences. External Consequences are about achieving your goals.
I encourage folks to start small, by committing to making small changes that will set you on the right path to achieving your goal. For example, If your goal is to walk a mile a day, three days a week, you can begin by committing to walk for five minutes or more, one or more days next week. By making your commitment so minimal, if you don’t follow through with your intended plan to walk for five minutes you have no rational excuse for not doing so since it was such a small commitment of time, money or energy to begin with. Therefore your reasons for not following through are unconscious.
That’s when you can shift your focus onto Internal Consequences which includes identifying which resistances got in the way of achieving that goal.
By identifying the thoughts, feelings and body sensations which stopped you from following through with your commitment to achieve your goal, when those same thoughts, feelings or body sensations reappear the next time to sabotage your progress, you will be better prepared to say to yourself, “this is my unconscious pattern getting in the way of my conscious intention to better my life”, take a few belly breaths, and force yourself to meet your commitment. If need be, make the goal even smaller (eg. to walk for only one minute for one day next week) in order to achieve success.
TRUE STORY: A client wanted to lose weight by changing his eating habits. He began by choosing to give up French fries which he’d been eating almost daily. The following week he reported that he couldn’t follow through because he couldn’t say “no” to those French fries. For the third week, I suggested tat he commit to limiting his French fries consumption to five days a week instead, giving it up for only two days. He could not do that either. For the following week he agreed to leave one French fry on his plate whenever he ordered them. It was difficult, but he was successful and he felt great about it (internal consequence). Since Success breeds Success, he was gradually able to leave 5 fries on his plate and eventually reduced his French fry consumption to one day a week, which was OK with him. Beginning by leaving one fry on his plate allowed him to “build the muscle” to say “no”, which got stronger over time.
METHOD:
- Identify a goal that will give you a feeling of accomplishment; something you’d really like to bring into your life.
- Assume it will take at least six weeks to develop a new habit pattern.
- Visualize yourself having successfully achieved your goal.
- Identify a small step you are willing to commit to taking to achieve your goal.
- Agree to revisit your progress one week later, to acknowledge your progress and reset your goal (your sextant).
- If you succeed, reset your goal by increasing it another small step.
- If you do not succeed, identify the thought, feeling or body sensation that stopped you. For example, “I forgot”, “I was tired”, “I didn’t have time”, “I didn’t feel like it”, etc.
- Practice Belly Breathing so that when you next hear the unconscious voice that sabotages you, you can identify it as “a saboteur” and take the action you were determined to take when you started this process.
Once you have engaged with this method for behavioral change, you can work with your clients to do the same.
I welcome your questions and comments at steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com or contact me at 312 818 0203
MAY YOUR NEW YEAR INCLUDE HEALTH, LOVE, PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY.