Change isn’t easy and changing diet and lifestyle habits can be particularly difficult. It is very normal to not succeed straight away. Progress isn’t linear, and it comes with ups and downs, successes and setbacks.
However, the setbacks can often take their toll. They can erode our confidence in our own ability to change, and without that confidence, successful change is much more difficult. In fact, confidence is an essential ingredient to successful change. If you can do with a bit of extra confidence, there are specifics things you can do to increase it and set you up for successful change:
Start small
Find a small step to take towards your desired habit. You do not need to go from 0 to 100 when it comes to change. In fact, most successful changes start with small steps, done consistently over time. Small steps help you get small wins, and small wins lead to more confidence, which will lead to bigger wins. For example, if your goal is to go to the gym every day, instead of trying to do that straight away, why not make your first goal to look for a gym? Or buying a gym membership? Or to make an exercise programme? Before you know it, you already have multiple successes in your pocket, which will boost your confidence and get you to your end goal.
Set a minimum success
We are often hard on ourselves and set high expectations. Setting a minimum success can help you manage your own expectations and make you more likely to succeed. Take the example from above. Say your goal is to go to the gym every day, you start the week off great, but then life gets in the way and you end up going 5 times that week. As you didn’t go every day, this feels like a failure, whereas actually 5 times is already a big improvement from not going at all, but it goes uncelebrated. So, when you set yourself a goal, you can set an ‘ideal scenario’ (in this case going to the gym every day) but then ask yourself ‘what is the minimum I’d be happy with?’. If your minimum success is 4 times a week, then by going 5 times you’ve not only hit your goal but surpassed it. This success will give you confidence to build yourself up to your ideal scenario while being kind to yourself in the process.
Revisit past changes
Success fosters success. In our lives, we’ve all made countless changes, but we often don’t stand still to reflect on them. When wanting to make a new change, asking yourself the question ‘when in my past have I successfully made a change?’ can be a great place to start. Not only will it help you realise that you’ve successfully changed your habits many times before, and therefore increase your confidence, but it can also teach you what about those particular times made you successful. Learning about how you best operate and what you need to make a change, will increase your chances of success and boost your confidence as you can be much more specific in your approach.
Doing these three things can help you feel empowered when taking on your desired lifestyle change. In addition, there are more things you can do to give yourself the best possible chance of success. These include clarifying your reason why you want to change learn more about that here and getting support from a health coach.
A health coach can help you break down your goal into actionable and realistic steps, increase your motivation and provide accountability and support every step of the way to your goal. To find out more about working with a health coach, check out this article or book a free discovery call with our health coach Isabelle using the form below.
This article was written by Health Coach Isabelle.
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