What Happens?…In its simplest and ideal form the process looks like this….You have a goal; you are excited by the prospect of producing something or achieving something. This is what gives you motivation and energy. Your goal might be: ● getting thin ● finding a sexual partner ● improving your work conditions. You decide on an activity you will enjoy that will help you achieve your goal. Like: ● joining a slimming club ● chatting someone up ● enforcing health regulations at work.
Any change, whether large or small, goes through several steps. When have made changes in the past you may not have been aware of this process. We want to spell it out because we think it is helpful to be aware of it. Then you can know how to put it into practice consciously. You can know how it can go wrong. And know how to put it right.
What Happens?
In its simplest and ideal form the process looks like this.
1) You have a goal; you are excited by the prospect of producing something or achieving something. This is what gives you motivation and energy. Your goal might be: ● getting thin ● finding a sexual partner ● improving your work conditions.
2) You decide on an activity you will enjoy that will help you achieve your goal. Like: ● joining a slimming club ● chatting someone up ● enforcing health regulations at work.
3) You carry it out. You achieve your goal.
4) You relax and reflect on what you’ve done.
Of course most changes are more difficult to make than this. Simply knowing what your goal is doesn’t tell you how to achieve it. All sorts of things cab get in the way. Look at the following possibilities.
You Don’t Enjoy What You’re Doing
You may really desire to get thin but choose a rigid diet that makes you miserable. If you don’t enjoy what you’re unlikely to keep it up.
You’re Not Tackling it the Right Way
The activity you’ve chosen won’t achieve your goal. For example, you desire to be thin. But all you do try to lose weight is take up jogging.
You Don’t Know Enough
You desire to be thin. But you don’t know that beer is very fattening and you carry on drinking six pints a night.
Something is Stopping You
Maybe you want to take up cycling. But you can’t afford a bike. Or you desire a more fulfilling job. But there’s high unemployment in your area.
Someone is Stopping You
What someone else wants gets in the way. You may be a man whose goal is to lose some weight. But one of your wife’s pleasures is producing marvelous meals. Her employment is spoilt if you don’t eat them.
There’s a Conflict inside You
For example, you may want to get into the football team. This will involve you in giving up drinking in order to become fit enough. This conflicts with another desire of yours which is having a booze-up on Saturday nights.
Part of You Feels Afraid
You may have the goal of losing weight so that you look more attractive to the opposite sex. But you’re afraid of making relationships. So, every time the pounds begin to drop off, you get scared and rush out on another binge.
If you don’t face the fact that something is stopping you achieving your goal, you may end up doing one of these things.
You Lie to Yourself
You want to diet but you just can’t resist food. So you give up trying and tell yourself that you don’t really care if you’re fat or have a heart attack. But you’re still unhappy.
You Delude Yourself
You put your faith in magical solutions that involve you in no real effort to stop eating. You think that five minutes’ exercise a day or a session on a slimming machine will get rid of the inches whilst you still consume cream cakes. Then on the scales, you feel shocked and hurt that all your ‘efforts’ have failed.
You Torture Yourself
You eat only greens and fruit and cottage cheese. You spend your whole day thinking about the food you’d like to eat if you could. You punish yourself so much that the craving for bread or chocolate overwhelms you. You have one bite and then, overcome by guilt, you say, ‘what the hell” and eat three loaves and six Mars bars.
In each of these solutions you ignore the fact that something has gone wrong. You stick rigidly to your decision even if everyone else can see that it is pointless.
Don’t get caught out this way. Instead of battling blindly on, take a fresh look at your problem and try a more realistic approach to its solution. You may have been thinking of yourself as “a slimmer” but you haven’t done anything to make you lose weight.
Coming Unstuck
What can you do when you get stuck? The first step is to become aware that there is a
PROBLEM
You need to become aware of the things that are stopping you from reaching your goal. You will then be in a better position to decide on a course of action that will help you achieve it.