Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

The 6 Secrets

To Lasting Change

dr. michelle segar

The 6 Secrets to Lasting Change: An Action Guide by dr. michelle segar

Copyright 2011 by dr. michelle segar. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any fashion - print, facsimile - or by any method yet to be developed without express permission of the copyright holder.

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

What We've Been Taught Sabotages Lasting Results.

By midlife, most of us have spent the last 20 to 30 years cycling through diet and exercise programs, eventually giving up when either results don’t match expectations or we lose our motivation. Unfortunately, this has caused many of us to feel that it is our fault because we “don’t have what it takes” or are simply lazy.

But it isn't your fault. And, you are NOT lazy.

We have learned an approach to exercise, dietary changes, and weight control that LEAD TO FAILURE. The approach that we have learned-- to change our behavior and take care of ourselves-- in general comes out of a “deficit” model. It focuses us on the negative and teaches us to initiate behavior change as a way to get rid of our “faults” and “imperfections” (a primary one being excess weight.)

This approach, however, leads us to feel deficient and bad about ourselves. As you probably know by now, initiating a behavior change out of a negative feelings about ourselves doesn’t lead to the long-term positive outcomes we desire.

We’ve also been socialized to adopt health behaviors to achieve certain things, usually with emphasizing benefits like “losing weight” and other health-related outcomes like “preventing disease.”

Yet my research and the research of others suggest these types of reasons, while logical and important, put pressure on us. Trying to adopt a behavior that pressures us by implying that we are deficient in some way undermines our motivation. These reasons lead us to rebel against feeling controlled. They also promote feelings of shame and self-loathing, eventually we drop out.

Sure, this deficit type of model motivates us to START. But has this approach resulted in you STAYING motivated for good? When I ask people this question almost everyone tells me, “no.” But there is very good news! This approach is becoming passé.

New research in psychology shows that many of the assumptions on which this deficit model is based are wrong.

In this action guide, I am going to tell you some specific things you can do to stop sabotaging yourself so you can finally achieve the life-long results you yearn for. You might be surprised by some of them!

If you are curious to learn about the six secrets to achieving lasting change - read on!

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Until now, we’ve been taught to think about motivation in terms of “quantity” and how much of it we have – or don’t have. Thinking about motivation in this black and white way is not very helpful because it doesn’t address how to change it. Research shows that motivation results from the main reason why we initiate any behavior change. The seed of motivation is our reason for initiating that behavior. Motivation isn’t the cause. It’s actually the result.

When we initiate a behavior change out of pressure or self-deprecation, it doesn’t take long for our motivation and behavior to stop. I call these types of reasons for change “The Wrong Why.” When we start any behavior with The Wrong Why, it leads to cyclical, not sustainable, behavior.

Because this is the only model we’ve been taught, we have been stuck repeating the same cycle for 10, 20, or even 30+ years. Luckily, escaping The Vicious Cycle of Failure is actually quite simple.

You can create high-quality motivation and lasting change by going to the origin: Your reason for initiating your desired behavior change!

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Action: Determine whether your reasons are The Wrong Whys. Have they created lasting motivation? Do they promote feelings of self-worth or self-rejection? Once you uncover and reject The Wrong Whys, and seek out ones that feel self-affirming and compelling to your daily living, you’ll discover a complete turnaround in feelings toward that behavior. After this process, most of my clients report that the behavior has transformed from feeling like a “chore” to accomplish into a “gift” they give themselves.

Secret #1: Treat motivation as a result instead of the source.

It’s so cliché to say that we live our lives on autopilot. But it’s true. Many if not most of our daily decisions are driven automatically, outside of our awareness. Living unconsciously eases our cognitive load from living hectic lives. But, it is one of the greatest blocks to taking good care of ourselves and to creating lasting behavioral change.

We think of ourselves as the only one who controls what we believe and value. Yet, because socialization is an unconscious process, we’ve internalized beliefs, goals, values and priorities from others and our culture without being consciously aware of it. For better and for worse, these socialized beliefs, life values, and daily goals direct much of our daily behavior outside of our conscious awareness.

Every day, there are numerous decision points when we choose between what we had planned to do or fulfilling a last minute request from a loved one or starting a new assignment at work. We evaluate whether we should stick with our plans based on each situations’ unique importance and urgency.

Our socialization may be the most powerful decision maker in our lives.

If we do not mindfully and proactively choose which values and beliefs determine our priorities and resulting decisions, the ones we were socialized to believe from others often drive our choices. In essence, without conscious decision-making about how we spend our daily minutes, we let others control our lives.

Until we become deeply mindful of which beliefs are uninvited and/or not our own and which ones facilitate our personal goals and core values, we are not in the driver seats of our own lives.

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Secret #2: Kick your unconscious out of the driver’s seat.

Action: Become mindful. This is crucial if our real values and priorities are going to direct our daily lives instead of the socialized ones hiding out in our unconscious mind. Jon Kabit-Zinn, an expert on mindful living and a hero of mine, refers to mindfulness as an “inner technology” we can all learn. In order to change our behavior and sustain it, we have to be willing to witness the specific beliefs and values we’ve been socialized to have and then challenge their validity for our lives.The goal is to prevent unhelpful beliefs (and negative voices of our parents, bosses, children, spouses) from directing our lives. Deciding to live mindfully-- instead of on autopilot-- is an incredibly proactive and empowering move.

Our “To Do” lists often prioritize our loved ones and work needs higher than ourselves. Does that sound familiar? We’ve been socialized that things like “professional success” and “caregiving loved ones” trump taking time to replenish our own energy and renew ourselves.

Many of us believe that the people we love and our other responsibilities benefit more when their needs are taken care of first. And society, our workplaces, and our family often encourage this order of tending to things. It’s just pragmatic and it’s human nature. When we take care of things – these things benefit. And we benefit, too, as a result.

But this is flawed logic.

Each of us is the energy center of every aspect of our very full lives. If we do not autonomously determine that we are going to take responsibility to fuel sufficient daily energy for our lives it won’t happen. If we do not give ourselves permission to continually renew ourselves and our own energy it simply runs out. When our energy is depleted, our resources for taking care of everyone and everything else are compromised.

Living our daily lives without regularly renewing our source of energy sabotages the very goals we believe we are serving! Living in a depleted state challenges our ability to feel joyful and happy, and obscures the meaning in life.

This phenomenon reflects a brilliant paradox. By taking time away from other things to give yourself time for self-care and to foster your energy source, you have more energy to fulfill all of your roles and responsibilities. This strategy embodies being autonomous and taking charge of your daily living experiences.

Currently, most companies do not let employees take paid work time to do energy renewing activities like exercise or meditation. This, however, will start to change with the emergence of more evidence showing that company’s get more (ROI, productivity, etc.) when they give more to employees.

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Secret #3: Become the CEO of your daily energy.

Action: Take charge. Become the CEO of your energy. Give yourself permission to make decisions that improve how you feel as you live your life. Managing your energy strategically is essential for living a joyful life and achieving your meaningful goals. Once you start to notice the numerous downstream benefits in all aspects of your life just from taking time to renew your energy, you’ll deeply understand the beauty of this paradox.

This secret reflects respecting what it takes to make changes that last. My advice may seem to contradict the “more is better” attitude toward healthy choices that dominate our culture. But I believe it reflects a smarter strategy if your goal is to integrate a behavior into your life in ways that you can maintain.

If life-long behavior is your goal (instead of a magic bullet, short-term fix), your focus needs to be on learning how to “fit” this behavior into your busy life. Maintaining a new and challenging behavior (exercise, changing our diet, better time management, etc.) in our crazy busy lives is like trying to keep large objects from flying out of a spinning tornado.

The speed and complexity of our lives simply makes adding something large very difficult. We have great intentions. We always start out strong. But, our constant whirling and fast-paced tempo can’t contain an overly large behavior change - and it eventually flies right out of our lives.

To create change that will last you need to develop key skills to overcome the challenges that arise to our planned behavior and goal. It’s much easier to learn these essential skills and learn to become consistent with smaller goals.

This advice is hard to swallow in our culture, which loudly promotes instant gratification and quick fixes. We’ve been taught to strive toward these lofty goals. We want to achieve the “gold standards” as prescribed by experts and the media.

Yet, if we don’t respect our own needs and make decisions that are in our long-term best interest, no one else will. Learning how to overcome our barriers on smaller goals follows accepted learning principles and makes the path to lasting change a more positive and an easier experience.

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Secret #4: Build consistency before quantity.

Action: File away your grandiose plans and goals for now. Be respectful of your learning process. Remind yourself this is in service of learning the necessary skills for maintaining the behavior in your life. Experiment with new strategies and attitudes to overcome the challenges that arise to your plans. Let yourself become consistent via smaller goals. Then, as you begin to feel confident that you can overcome these barriers, start increasing your goals by modest amounts. (For example, if you want to sustain a more physically active life, take one to two months to learn how to add 5 to10 minutes of physical activity to your life on most days.) You have your whole life to sustain behavior. Why not take sufficient time to learn how you can maintain it for the rest of your life?

We’ve learned to change lifestyle behaviors (e.g, eating, physical activity) out of a “medical” model, primarily to lose weight. Our clinicians want us to lose weight to improve our health, our bosses want us to lose weight to save the company money, and we want to lose weight to feel better about ourselves.

It’s been presumed that the most effective way to lose and maintain weight is through simultaneously changing our diet and physical activity level. But this assumption is based out of a medical model, not a psychological one.

Yet, women juggle multiple roles and responsibilities (as do many men). Because of this, many of us simply don’t have sufficient time, attention, and energy to focus on and successfully integrate BOTH behaviors at the same time in ways we can sustain.

These two behaviors are completely different. They both tend to involve very difficult choices-- all day long. Making dietary changes and adding exercise may kick-start weight loss. But is instant gratification or lasting results the goal?

This secret respects how life actually works (not how we hope it will) by acknowledging our multiple roles and extensive responsibilities. I would like to acknowledge that many in medicine and public health would disagree with me about this. Many professionals are focused on achieving optimal weight and health benefits from behavioral changes. Yet, if behavior can’t be sustained over time, those benefits will be fleeting.

In fact, research shows us that striving toward two difficult goals at the same time is not a great idea.

We now know that humans have a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. We get depleted by too many decisions necessitating self-control, and can’t maintain willpower. Thus, the convention in society to change diets at the same time as initiating regular exercise likely sabotages our ability to maintain these behaviors, something that ultimately undermines weight loss and health improvements.

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Secret #5: Don’t change two hard behaviors at the same time.

Action: Give yourself permission to master one behavior at a time, especially if changing two at the same time feels overwhelming. Don’t follow prescriptions or advice from “experts” that contradicts your past experience. You know more about your life than anyone. Commit to long-term, instead of instant results. Give yourself adequate time to learn how to integrate the first behavior into your life consistently. Then, after you’ve mastered that behavior start learning how to integrate the next one. (I advise taking 6 to 12 months to master one behavior.)

Our mindset determines our behavior. How we think about behavior change determines our mindset about it -- and ultimately what we achieve.

Start with the end in mind. Stop aiming for quick fixes that you know by now don’t stick. Make life-long behavioral maintenance explicit in how you approach change. Everything I’ve learned about creating lasting change can be realized through getting onto what I call The Smart Path to Lasting Change. (See spiral below.)

This path invites us to get very strategic and SMART about creating change by guiding us to become more.….

Self-Caring: Self-caring individuals initiate change out of respect for themselves. They desire to nurture their sense of well-being and create positive daily living experiences.

Mindful: Being mindful is about taking your mind off autopilot and living purposefully—and being—in the here and now.

A u t o n o m o u s : B e i n g a u t o n o m o u s m e a n s t a k i n g responsibility for our daily energy. It means being willing to buck the trend, whether it’s a fad diet, an exercise plan, or the advice and well-meaning intentions of those who love us best.

Respectful: Smart women respect their bodies. They respect their own limitations and know what they can and can’t do. They also respect their own needs and say “no” when necessary.

Tolerant: Being tolerant means being flexible and adjusting to life on life’s terms instead of beating yourself up because you’re not “in synch” with what’s happening around you.

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Secret #6: Get smart about change. Begin with the end in mind.

Remember how The Wrong Why keeps us stuck in The Vicious Cycle of Failure?

In contrast to the negative experiences in The Vicious Cycle of Failure, The Smart Path to Lasting Change reflects a positive and SMART process that initiates in the center -- with YOU.

The core reason for change goes beyond “better health” to realizing self-care, joy, and well-being.

A spiral is an appropriate symbol for this path because it represents continual growth, connection, and progress. With SMART guiding our journey, positive energy continuously broadens and builds our inner and outer resources.

Thank You I appreciate you taking the time to check out my ideas about how to best promote lasting change. While straightforward, my recommendations take commitment, practice, and patience. But the rewards are well worth the effort.

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

Action: Use the SMART principles as your compass to behavior change. Through following this path, you’ll not only unleash authentic motivation and foster lasting change. You will also discover how to truly OWN your life and create reserves of dynamic energy and well-being that you never thought possible.

WOMEN: Do you want to make lasting changes in YOUR LIFE? I welcome the opportunity to learn more about your needs. Please contact me or email michelle[at]michellesegar.com.

ORGANIZATIONS: Do you want products and services that facilitate lasting behavioral changes and also foster enthusiasm, wellbeing and generate conversation? If so, please see my integrated Motivation-Prioritization-Adherence behavioral model on my consulting page.I wish you a successful and fulfilling journey,

Copyright © 2011 Michelle Segar. Tweet this report. Share on Facebook. Share on LinkedIn. Share on Google+

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Hi. I’m Michelle Segar. For almost two decades, I’ve been coaching women in these principles as well as researching how to foster optimal goal setting, sustainable motivation and behavior, with a focus on exercise and self-care. I am a motivation psychologist and behavioral scientist at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, and also teach undergraduates how to design their lives to promote life-long well-being and health. I have a PhD in Psychology, a MPH in Health Behavior/Health Education, and a MS in Kinesiology, all from the University of Michigan.

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