When it comes to make a change- diet, exercise, lifestyle, any kind of change- there are two areas that you have to be in control of. I'll get to the two areas in a second but before I do, a couple of thoughts. The first thought is that there are millions of steps a person can take to make a change. I'm not saying there are only two things that you have to do to make a change. I'm saying the millions of steps usually fall into one of these two areas.
The next thought is that simple always trumps complicated. If change were easy I wouldn't need to write a blog about making changes. So I'm not sure why people always seem to choose the craziest options. (Actually it's probably because people don't believe the simple answer is the best answer: spoiler alert it usually is.) The thing to remember about simple trumps complicated is that simple for me may not be simple for you.
So when it comes to the millions of possible steps you can take to make a change, choose the simplest one. So let's talk about the two areas all of these steps mostly fall into. The areas are awareness and mindfulness.
The first area you have to tackle is awareness. Most people have no idea how bad their problem is. For instance, when you ask someone how many calories they eat in a day they'll say something like 2500. Then when you have them actually track the calories it's more like 3500. This same person wonders why they aren't losing weight but gaining.
So the first steps to change usually revolve around becoming more aware of what it is you're trying to change. How big is the problem for you? When does the problem come up for you? How does the problem present itself for you? Who are the people that bring this problem out for you.
These are all awareness questions. In order to have a long lasting change (i.e forever) you have to answer as many awareness questions as possible.
Once you've answered the awareness questions you have to be mindful (the second area) enough to recognize when you're entering situations in which the problem may arise. So the next change steps you take will usually deal with how to deal with those situations.
For instance take the person who was eating too much without realizing it. Let's imagine this person is going out to eat with friends. A situation where he/she may usually overindulge. They know this now because it was an answer to an awareness question. A couple of mindfulness steps he/she could take is possibly decide a healthy option before getting to the restaurant. Or they could challenge themselves to put their fork down between each bite (doing so allows you to actually chew and realize how full you actually are).
Mindfulness steps fix the problems that the answers to the awareness questions represent. This is where the simple trumps complicated comes into play. It is at this point you want to pick the simplest step.
