Want to change your Habits? Behold the inner-struggle you have no idea is going on

Ever wondered why even when you have a really freaking strong desire to change, you still feel this strange inner turmoil about actually doing it?

It’s called ‘Ambivalence’.

“The state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.”

It affects us all, one of the weird glitches of having a brain that had its initial coding written nearly 2 million years ago.

We long for safety and comfort, often that can be achieved by staying exactly as we are.

Example: You’re going to be pretty motivated to run if you’re being chased by a Lion, not so much if it’s a cold morning and the main reason you’ve decided to do is to shift a few Christmas pounds.

Now I’m definitely no expert on motivational interviewing.

However, I am going to share some thoughts on 3 approaches I’ve used with clients to help ease their way through ambivalence.

1. Identify Your Deepest Values

I often like to phrase this as ‘what positive traits would you like others to describe you as having?”.

Whilst the thinking is extrinsic, it’ll actually help you nail down what you think are important values to your identity.

You can also then look to tie this into how these traits would benefit those closest to you in order to intensify the emotion around displaying them.

2. Audit Your Habits

Your actions are majorly influenced by your habits, at least half of the actions you perform each day are completely automatic. Governed by a lifetime of experiences, fork in the road decisions, and environmental cues.

Begin by identifying your current habits with a scorecard and then give them a rating of either:

• Positive to your Values (heading towards them)
• Negative to your Values (heading away from them)
• Neutral to your Values (neither towards nor away)

Doing this will give you a clear understanding of the biggest bang for your buck habits to start focusing on and adjusting in order to have more of your daily actions align with your values.

3. Find Your ‘Goldilocks Zone’

Once again this relates to the habits I mentioned above.

We need to set ourselves up for ‘intrinsic motivation’.

In order to do this we want to set ourselves targets for our new behaviours that are:

Achievable — If it’s not a slam-dunk success at least 90% of the time it’s too difficult and will reduce your feelings of competence.

Self-Directed — Being able to make our own decisions about something is HUGE, a coach can help give you options if it’s an area you lack knowledge in but the ultimate decision needs to be something you can own.

Accountable — A tick sheet, an accountabilibuddy, a guide, an app, whatever it is just make sure you’re self-monitoring. The importance of this is evident across the body of research in most areas of behaviour change.

The scope of this topic is huge, so if you’re looking to delve a little deeper I’d recommend “Motivational Interviewing in Nutrition and Fitness” by Dawn Clifford and Laura Curtis and also heading to selfdeterminationtheory.org.

p.s. if you’re interested in coaching to improve your health and fitness please head to my website or feel free to email me at adam.boyd-brown@builtbybrown.co.uk and I’ll be happy to discuss what you’d like to achieve and the options I have available to help you achieve it.