***Changing Your Ways, Keeping that Resolution You Made

Changing Your Ways, Keeping that Resolution You Made to Change

It is one thing to decide to change something about yourself, and quite another to do it. There is a concept that holds me back: that I relate to the current "I" that has to change. You, too? As if a parent needed to be defied here.

Reflexively we do what our usual routines are. Pulling out of that gives me the same feeling of being pulled back that I get when I walk out of the ocean and part with the warm supportive water.

Maybe this plan of attack will work for you too. Walk into the role of the person – whoever that person might be - who is going to pull off this new behavior. Yes, be an actor for that walk-on. "Fake it until you make it" is a slogan that comes to mind here, doesn't it? Call up the alter ego just for these brief appearances.

Let the question nestle in the back of your mind "What would my character do?" That probably sounds silly at first, but it works. A lot of things that work in life are stupid, have you noticed?

Let's say you decide to give up that snack or drink before bed, a time anyone's guard is dozing off. Before you know it, you have your hand in the refrigerator or on the neck of that bottle of joy. Nothing can stop you now, right? Unless you let loose an internal scream of "What would my character do?" and hope you can raise that character from deep within you. If you don't, you will next time.