Hello, everyone. I hope you are enjoying Ken’s discussion of Changeology. Even he admits his chapter-by-chapter posts don’t give you the full flavor to savor. So, remember to go to Amazon through the link on his blog page to get your own copy of it. In the meantime, I thought I would chime in with a question and comment of my own. Let me tell you the first question I ask patients when we start discussing bad habits they may want to consider changing. It’s, “Why?”
“Why what?” you may ask. Well, I am going to tell you.
Why do you have that habit? Why are you doing the bad thing you are doing? What is it that caused you to start and keeps you doing your smoking, overeating, over drinking or whatever other “bad” habit you have?
By now, you are probably thinking,”So what does it matter what started it? I’ve got it; now, I want to fix it.”
Great! I want you to change that habit. But, the reason the question “Why?” is so important ask and answer is if you can understand the root cause, it becomes easier to change.
For example, did you start smoking because of peer pressure-it made you “cool” in the eyes of your friends? Well, what do they think now? Still cool? Probably not- so maybe you need to change the way you think to a more current reality. Of course, if you are still hanging out with folks who smoke, maybe you need to do some changing in that regard too; to get away from those whose bad habits promote yours.
Here’s another example: Why did you start overeating? Were you lonely? Bored? Tired? Are these reasons still a factor in your life? Are they still influencing your behaviors?
If you don’t know the why-then you don’t know the reason behind the behaviors. If you can’t figure that out, it’s a lot harder to change your behavior.
So, there you go… The first two questions to ask and answer on your quest to rid yourself of an unwanted habit. Why did you start? And why are you continuing to do it?
[reminder]What habit would you like to change?[/reminder]