This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Hold That Line

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” –Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

With proper maintenance the car will last for many years. It seems a no brainer to understand this statement. Change the oil every 3-5,000 miles, change the filters too, change the tires when needed and maintain the proper air pressure, etc. The funny thing is we do it. We spend a ton of hard earned money on this vehicle that gets us to where we need to be at any given time of day and so we have to take good care of it if we are to get our monies worth and have it last as long as possible. No one wants to start a car payment over again if they can help it.

So this concept begs the question why don’t we think this way when it comes to ourselves?

Find out what's happening in Oxfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“The biggest enemies of willpower are temptation, self-criticism and stress. These 3 skills: self-awareness, self-care and remembering what matters most are the foundation for self-control.”  --

Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.

Find out what's happening in Oxfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In this 5th installment of change we look closely at maintenance. According to Drs. Prochaska, Norcross and DiClemente and their book, Changing For Good, “No less important than action, maintenance is often far more difficult to achieve. Successful change means change that is sustained over time, not months, but years, decades, a lifetime. Maintenance is another busy, active period of change, one that requires you to learn new coping methods. Getting there is half the battle.” (Pg. 204 CFG)

Why all the fuss about maintenance? Why should we hold the line so stringently? I believe it is because it is easy to slip up. How many times have you lost weight from dieting over 6 months and you are so proud of the way you look that you think you’ve got this dieting thing down pat and started to relax the way you eat for a week only to find that now you feel and look as undone as when you started? This is called action without maintenance. The flaw in the human character is really that no one wants to work too hard to hold the line and keep up with the changes they have made. Hard work is too hard to sustain forever. Some people give up on the hard work and think, “See, I knew I couldn’t really change; it’s too hard.”

“There are 2 factors that are fundamental to successful maintenance: sustained, long-term effort, and a revised lifestyle.” (Pg. 204 CFG)

In the last post where I discussed the action step we learned about the concept of countering. Countering is basically all about how to replace a bad, negative, problematic behavior with a better, positive, more productive behavior and/or way of thinking. If you were even close to successful in learning to replace and get busy with the new behavior and new thinking patterns then this is where maintenance picks up steam. Temptation takes a starring role here.

“No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.” – George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

“The most common threats to maintenance are:

*Social pressures: Those around you that engage in the problem you are trying to change or they don’t recognize the negative impact on you.

*Internal Challenges: Results from overconfidence and forms of defective thinking and self-blame.

       *Special Circumstances:  When you are confronted by an unusual, intense temptation.” (Pg. 206 CFG)

Here is an example of a challenge I faced while in the maintenance step.

I came home from having had the surgery and went through the motions of recovery. My overall goal however was to change the way I wanted to live my entire life. I wanted to live with more presence, to feel proud of what I saw in the mirror, to have a more enlightened and positive perspective,  to improve my attitude about myself inside and out.

I had started a diet, I had the surgery, and I started looking into a career change. I was heavily into a lot of action steps and feeling really good about each moment that produced positive, productive results. When the recovery time had ended from the surgery I felt proud of myself for having done it. I did start to see physical changes that encouraged me, however; the diet thing was harder than I thought.

I had to pull out all the stops and maintain a positive perspective with visual reminders all around me. That is how my “wallpaper” started. I am a visual person as most artists are and I found that by surrounding myself with words of inspiration I could visually and mentally use these amazing quotes and sayings to empower me to keep pushing forward despite the hardship I was going through. It was my way of always recommitting to the changes I wanted so desperately to make.

I kept these visual reminders close to me and the more I would read them the more I would come to believe them and let them sink into my soul. This also led to the “Whispers from my Wallpaper” blog post project. I found that in order for me to know for sure that these words were getting through and taking hold I needed to write about them.

Everyone will have their own way of using maintenance to help guide them through the difficult moments after action steps have fallen a bit behind. However maintenance is just another form of an action step. How long did it take for you to realize that a change was needed in your life?

  Forgive yourself for your impatience and allow for the rest of your life to unfold in this new lifestyle you are desperate and determined to create. Remember what you didn’t like that led you to want to make a change and keep reminding yourself of that so you can start from where you are now and keep moving forward.

“It is difficult to prepare for the extreme, the accidental, and the unexpected. This is what makes maintenance such a great challenge.” (Pg. 208 CFG)

Maybe you are not strong in thinking of ways to meet the challenges of maintenance. Here are a couple of ways that could help:

**Keep a journal: Write down ways that you found your day or week to be difficult. Review the list you made when you were thinking about what you wanted to change. On a third list write down ways that you chose to recommit to the changes you wanted to make and if it worked or not. Refer to the 3 lists at the first sign of difficulty. These lists will act very much like the visual I created for myself with my wallpaper. “A successful reinvention doesn’t happen when you hate the person you are. It happens when you love yourself enough to believe that you can do better and deserve better.” – Dr. Phil

      **Take all the credit. Maintenance is not the time to criticize yourself for having a problem toward change. It is a time to take all the credit for recognizing the need and doing something about it. Sure, there will be times when you come up against difficulties that you didn’t think you would have to deal with but by recommitting to your goal you are allowing yourself to forgive the temptations and the weakness you might feel and stand up tall again. Take all the credit you can for the hard work you are putting in.

“Live the life that you choose, not the life you think was assigned to you.” – Dr. Phil

So, we’ve looked at the idea of creating alternatives to help put power and control in your hands when a sense of relapse is creeping its way inside. Here are some ways to counter that feeling of relapse:

  Create a new lifestyle: Make time for doing things that you’ve always wanted to do but have denied yourself until now. By allowing the time to attend to the fun things you build resistance to relapse and boost your happiness and empowerment. “Learn to enjoy the way as much as you would enjoy when you reach the destination.” Sakshi Chetana, Laughing Buddha: The Alchemy of Euphoric Living.

 

 “Stop with the negative waves Moriarty”: So says Donald Sutherland in the wacky, funny movie Kelly’s Heroes. Negative self-talk is a serious problem and a very hard habit to break. Review over and over as often as you need to and make sure that you are always being honest with yourself. “Try giving up all the thoughts that make you feel bad, or even just some of them, and see how doing that changes your life. You don’t need negative thoughts. All they have ever given you was a false self that suffers. They are all lies.” –Gina Lake, What About Now?: Reminders for Being in the Moment

 

  No slip zone: Slip-ups are most likely the result of stress or not so strong coping skills. What would life be without up and down, good and bad, black and white, yes or no? How would we truly appreciate the good things without a reminder of what the bad feels like or looks like? Slip-ups happen because we are human. But remember forgiveness is important here. Recognize the slip-up, don’t deny it or hide from it. You might miss your old habits or behaviors and so you should allow for some mourning. This process lets you know that your new self is close at hand and recognizes that it doesn’t need old problems to get in the way. “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” –Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

 

  Patience and Persistence: There is no easy way through change. You can’t cook it in 30 minutes, you can’t sit through it like a movie, and you can’t wait it out like a long line at the amusement park. It takes a long time and hard work and a fighting spirit inside and out to prevent relapse. Make friends with time. You can take as long as you want for the changes to take hold and you should think about allowing for that time to happen. With each time space allowed for change you are getting closer to your goal and you are adding to your life overall in quality and contentedness. “It is better to take many small steps in the right direction, the purposeful direction, than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” –Louis Sachar

 

The next question is: Are you afraid of success? I think the greatest way through the fear of success is to share your story with others who are struggling with all that you are going through. Seeing your story unfold in the eyes of another person gives meaning and hope and power to all that you have endured up to this point. Humans thrive on giving but more importantly they thrive on giving back. Volunteer for a cause that has meaning for you especially if it is related to the changes you are making in your own life. “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Success has a lot to do with a psychology term developed by Albert Bandura. The term is called self-efficacy and it is “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.” Simply: it is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation. According to Dr. Bandura, “virtually all people can identify goals they want to accomplish, things they would like to change and achieve. It is not so easy or simple to do this.”

“People who believe they have the power to exercise some measure of control over their lives are healthier, more effective and more successful than those who lack faith in their ability to effect changes in their lives.” – Albert Bandura

What is your self-efficacy level?

People with a strong sense of self-efficacy:

  • View challenging problems as tasks to be mastered

  • Develop deeper interest in the activities in which they participate

  • Form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities

  • Recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments

 

 

People with weak self-efficacy:

       *Avoid challenging tasks

       *Believe that difficult tasks and situations are beyond their capabilities

       *Focus on personal failing and negative outcomes

       *Quickly lose confidence in personal abilities

To read more about how to master self-efficacy please go to http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/self_efficacy.htm.

You can also visit www.changeologybook.com to access the list of methods that Dr. John Norcross outlines on page 192 of his book, Changeology, 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.

My Story

At this point in my steps toward change I can honestly say that my self-efficacy is strong. I have lost over 35 pounds, I have realized a dream of mine to share clothes with my daughter, I feel good inside and out when I look in the mirror but I know that I am not done. The work ahead of me is to accept this new me, to actually live on the outside like the person I have become on the inside, to accept how other people relate to this new me.

I have a long way to go to develop the personality I want to convey and not use old crutches to get through tough situations like sitting in the back of a lecture room or not attending seminars and workshops and networking events simply because I am too scared to walk into a room full of people I do not know. Life doesn’t happen from behind the curtain. I have worked too hard to hide anything about me now. My changes don’t stop simply because a goal was realized. Changes continue to take place because of the empowerment developed through the initial change and it becomes a game and a fun challenge now to see what more I can push myself to do and how far I can go if I set my mind to it.

“Something astonishing had happened…..The journey had lifted her out of the plainness of her life….She felt herself a single red flower in the field of green grass.” –Ayana Mathis, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Call To Action

There is a way to easily assess your self-efficacy. According to Dr. John Norcross and his book, Changeology (Pg. 190 CO), “select the behavior for which you are in maintenance. Remember that self-efficacy is behavior and situation specific not a total and complete evaluation of your self-esteem. Make a list of a dozen situations, from the least difficult to the most difficult, in which you are tempted to give up. For each of those situations, evaluate how confident you are that you could persevere with your goal behavior on a scale of 1 (not at all confident) to 10 (supremely confident).”

The self-efficacy sheet looks like this: Create 2 columns. One side is labeled Situation/Feelings and the other side is labeled Confidence Rating. You can rate a range of situations each on its own piece of paper (school, work, home, career) and feelings (sad, happy, content, disgusted). Good Luck.

Journey On….

For information about coaching, whether it is in a like-minded group atmosphere or one on one please contact lisa@journeyoncoaching.com or call 203-560-3061. For guidance through maintenance let’s chat.

For more wisdom wizards please visit Lisa’s website at www.journeyoncoaching.com  or visit Lisa’s Pinterest Board at http://www.pinterest.com/lisazaccagnini/wisdom-wizards/.

 

Images by bing.com

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?