SZN. 2 Ep. 15/ Making Lasting Change
Making Lasting Change
By: J. CangialosI, LCPC
All humans who participate in this thing called life actually participate in five different smaller aspects of life. Although some of us feel like all we do is work, that isn’t the case. We work and we socialize and we spend time at home with family. If you disagree, then read on, because this article is for you. We will look at ways to create lasting change within these areas of life with the purpose of establishing a balance.
The Five Different Five Areas of Life
First, let’s define the five areas of life. What exactly are we referring to?
Work Life
This refers to how you feel about the work you do. This includes the kind of job you have, whether you’re happy with it, and whether you’re happy with what you’re contributing. Is your salary adequate? Do you feel it is fair? Does it provide what you need it to provide? Does it support your preferred lifestyle?
Physical Life
This speaks to how you feel about your body and physicality. This also includes your general physical health, body image, self-esteem, and what affects it. Self esteem is how you perceive your worth and value. How you perceive yourself, not how you perceive how others see you. When we look at our physical life we need to consider how we physically feel in general. Do you get sick a lot? Do you get frequent minor ailments or injuries? Do you get enough restful sleep? Do you eat well? Do you make good food choices and fuel your body properly?
Home Life
I define home life as your environment. What is your home life like? If you’re living with a partner, this also includes the dynamic of that relationship. Are you happy and getting along? This includes how you feel about your physical space. Is your home comfortable? Does it bring peace to you? Does it include all the things that bring you joy and help you relax?
Social Life
Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert doesn’t matter in this context. What matters is that your needs are being met. Even the most introverted introvert still needs some social interaction with other humans. How are you meeting your social needs? Do you spend time with others who you enjoy spending time with?
Spiritual Life
This includes and is not limited to religion. Are you satisfied with your spiritual beliefs? Do you have any sense of longing for a greater meaning? When any one of these areas of life is off in any way, turmoil happens. Turmoil is a state of great disturbance, confusion, or uncertainty. I use it as an umbrella term to include feelings of anger, depression, and anxiety. When you reduce feelings of turmoil, you increase overall quality of life. It’s important to remember that improved quality of life doesn’t mean perfection across the board. It simply means life in general is mostly good across all areas.
How do we get there?
Take a look at the areas described above and assess one. Be careful not to judge yourself for what you learn, but rather use this as information gathering. In order to make any change in life, you need to become aware of what needs to change. How does your body feel? Are you mostly healthy or do you get sick often? Do you often experience pain? Lethargy? How is your sleep?
Do you enjoy what you do for a living? Does it provide the kind of lifestyle you want? Evaluate each area and ask yourself these types of relevant questions. Find out what you’re missing and make a list. Again, this is not about judging, this is about learning. Use this information as a starting point for identifying the changes you want to make.
How to Make Change and Meet Your Goals
There are several tactics to go about setting and achieving goals that can translate into lasting changes. I like to coach my patients with the SMART goals platform. This is a great format for making smaller steps to reach bigger goals.
Let’s review what a SMART goal looks like:
Specific
Any goal, big or small, must be specific. Setting a goal of getting healthy is too broad. Rather, it’s more effective to set the goal of “I will improve my health by starting to exercise.” Starting to exercise is a specific way to improve overall health.
Measurable
Your progress toward your goal needs to be measurable. “I will exercise for 30 minutes, three times per week.” This is measurable. You can time 30 minutes and you can count the three times you exercise.
Achievable
All goals should be achievable. If it isn’t achievable today, there may be a smaller action step you can pull from this bigger goal that can be achievable in the immediate future. Can you reallyexercise for 30 minutes, three times per week? Perhaps you have two small children and a full time job, which makes two times a week more realistic. Evaluate your goals for practicality and choose the option you think is the most plausible, given your life circumstances.
Relevant
Any action steps or goals should be relevant to what you are attempting to accomplish. If the overall goal is to improve health, all your action steps should move in that direction.
Time Bound
Time bound goals are how you hold yourself accountable and they also allow you to know whenyou can celebrate. And yes, please don’t forget to celebrate your milestones! Setting a milestone such as “I will work my way up to running a full mile by the end of the next two weeks,” allows you to measure your progress. If you routinely skip your runs, how likely is it that you’ll reach your one mile within two weeks?
All of this seems so logically simple, but for many, it isn’t that simple. Why?
Typically, the answer is one word: fear. Change is scary for most people. Sometimes change is so scary, the status quo – even if you’re in turmoil – seems preferable. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can feel empowered to face the fear in order to create the changes you know you want.
How to Handle Fear of Change
Normalize that fear. As previously stated, most people feel fear around change. Therefore, the fact you’re feeling trepidation around making changes doesn’t mean you’re broken. The fear of the unknown outcomes helps in this context. What’s important is the willingness to be okay with the uncertainty. Once the change is made, the outcome will no longer be uncertain, because it will have revealed itself.
Eventually, you’ll always know the outcome – but what if the outcome isn’t ideal? That’s a great question to ask yourself when experiencing anxiety. What if that negative, outcome happens? What would you do? This question isn’t meant to discourage you from facing the fear and making the change. Rather, it’s meant to help you prepare yourself in order to increase your chances of success.
For example, what happens if you get sick and you can’t exercise three days per week for 30 minutes? The fact that you thought of that potential hiccup means you can now come up with a back-up plan. Hold yourself accountable to what you said you would do. You might not be at 100 percent capacity but can you still exercise at 70 percent? If we’re being honest, most of us can still accomplish something at 70 percent. If you find yourself worried about any potential outcome, make a plan for it.
The plan alone will help to reduce the anxiety. Trust in yourself and in your capabilities to face the fear of the unknown. Trust that you have what it takes to address any outcome that may occur and to reroute if need be. This is not only what builds resilience, but it’s also what makes any change become lasting change. You deserve to step out of the turmoil and into the improved quality of life you stand to gain.
