Tips on Making Changes
What are health habits?
Sure change is hard, but not impossible. It is very hard to change
lifelong habits. The way that you eat, the things you eat, when and
how much you exercise, and how you take care of yourself are all health
habits. Most of us have strong feelings about these habits. You
will not be able to change these habits overnight. But you can
make changes. You will need to choose what you want to change first.
Then you need to learn how to make changes.
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
What are ways to change habits?
Listed here are some tips on how to make changes. These tips are
from people who have made changes in their habits and from people who study
how changes are made.
- Make a plan for change. Set a goal and then break it down
into smaller easier to do steps. It can be easy to become
discouraged and stop trying if you look only at the big goal.
For example if you set a goal to walk 30 minutes every day,
start by walking at least 10 minutes two days a week. Then after
you do this for a few weeks build up by adding a day and
increasing time by five minutes every week.
- Add a new good habit before you break a old habit. Start an
exercise habit before you stop a tobacco use habit.
- Keep a record of your progress. Part of a diabetes health
journal can be a log on your exercise, for example.
- Make it easy to remember your new habit. If it is hard for
you to remember to take your morning pills, put the bottle by
your coffee pot or by your toothbrush.
- Start with the habit that is causing you the most distress,
not necessarily the one you think should be the most important.
- Think of the steps you take to make changes as trial runs.
After you take a trial run at a change a few times, think about
what worked and what didn't work and why. Use what you learn to
choose a new plan.
- Get rid of reminders of the habits you want to stop.
- Ask for help from friends and family. Tell them how you want
them to help you.
- Write a contract for the change with a family member or with
your doctor.
- Reward yourself for progress.
- Download
this worksheet
to help you identify and set a plan for change.
If you have a hard time making a change, it could be that you set
the goal to high, or that the reward is too small. You might
be trying to make too many changes at one time. You might not
be really ready to work on that goal yet. Don't give up
- think about your goals. Learn from what didn't work.
Set a new plan.
If you have a day when you don't meet your goal, try not to feel
let down. Start fresh tomorrow.
Changing habits will not happen all at once. But these
ideas can help you work on new healthy habits.
You can share your successes as well as your failures on making changes
with other diabetics by joining the Diabetes Group on the right of this
page.