Keep Your Resolutions This Year – Part 4
Once you have successfully made it through the initial phases of behavior change and you’ve experienced some success with new, healthier behavior it is natural to begin to feel some well-deserved confidence! You’ve made it through the hardest part, right? Certainly you will be able to continue with your new behaviors and outlook!
It’s important to never fully let your guard down, however. Be ever vigilant so that you can avoid temptations. Reward yourself when you successfully avoid temptations and relapses and try to replace old negative habits with new positive habits.
If you do trip-up, however…don’t be too hard on yourself…and above all:
NEVER GIVE UP!
Instead, look on any mistakes as just minor setbacks. Relapses are common and they are actually an important part of the process of accomplishing lifelong changes.
Common feelings associated with relapses are failure, frustration, and disappointment. Don’t allow any setbacks to take away from your self-confidence.
A good thing to do after a relapse is to look very carefully at why the relapse occurred. Can you pinpoint what triggered it? If you can pinpoint a trigger, you may be able to avoid future relapses that are similar in nature.
Yes…relapses are not fun. The only thing to do, though, is pick yourself back up, dust off the dirt, and get back to work. If necessary, start again with the preparation, action, and maintenance stages. Reaffirm your motivation, your plan of action, and your commitment to making these changes. Then make plans for dealing with future temptations.
Like I said before, most resolutions fail because proper preparation and actions were not performed. When you approach change with a solid understanding of how to prepare, implement and maintain a new behavior, you have an EXCELLENT chance for lasting success!
