With the new year upon us, most of us have resolved to improve, change or just do something differently. It might be to exercise more, eat less, kick the caffeine habit, stop smoking, take a class, learn a new language, play a musical instrument, practice more, read more, yell less, call parents more often, get less upset, take time for oneself, become less sensitive or more sensitive. The list could go on for pages. So how do we change? What are the necessary steps to achieve our goals? Change has four steps: 1. Awareness of the need to change 2. Preparation for the change 3. Changing the behavior 4. Maintaining the change 1. Awareness of the need to change can come from reading a journal or an article about the consequences of continuing the dysfunctional behavior. It can come from pressure from family or friends; it can occur to us by witnessing someone else’s behavior, it can be triggered by boredom, overwork, anything that makes us dissatisfied with the status quo. The impetus to change comes from this dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, we can get stuck in this first step, waiting for the right moment to change. Awareness without action can be painful, because we feel guilty about not moving on to the next step: preparation. 2. Preparation for the change depends on your goal. Is there a dysfunctional behavior that needs to be stopped? Is there a new skill that needs to be learned? What I have found helpful at this stage is the following formula: a. What do I need to do less of? b. What do I need to do more of? c. What do I need to stop completely? d. What do I need to start immediately? In this stage, we decide on a time frame. It can be tomorrow, next week, or next month, but a date has to be set. What also helps is to tell others about one’s intentions so you will elicit their support or incur their disapproval if you procrastinate. 3. Changing the behavior is the action step. The change can be a reward in itself, such as learning to play the piano or becoming proficient on the computer. If the change is something we must give up for health considerations, such as eating fatty foods, then we must find strategies to compensate and reward ourselves. Compensation might be having a favorite fruit, all cut up and waiting in the fridge; a reward might be a gift to oneself for succeeding. Changing anything is either adding on to or taking away from. Change can encompass loss — loss of the former behavior — and loss is painful. People often prefer the familiar dysfunction than the risk of the unfamiliar. How often do we see couples in a bad marriage or someone in a bad job unwilling to risk the move out of it? Fear of the unknown is what keeps people from changing. 4. Maintaining the change is the most difficult part. Maintenance may need to last from some months to a lifetime. The pitfalls of maintaining the change are daily temptations such as “I’m too busy to,” “Just this once” or “I’ll do it tomorrow.” Overconfidence, i.e., “This isn’t going to be hard,” can also be a pitfall because people may not get needed help. And feeling guilty for lapses can bring on feelings of failure and a desire to give up. I’m forever trying to maintain better eating habits. Instead, I relapse into chocolate, saying, “Just this once.” But I lie to myself. It is pure self-indulgence with the consequent guilt. The only thing that helps me is not having any chocolate in the house. With time, maintaining the change will become easier and eventually it will be an automatic behavior, which does not require constant attention. What families can do to help the person undergoing change is to not push. People are often impatient to see action. Anxiety is aroused by the fear of failure. Success, but success comes from experience, and experience comes from failure. Tomorrow I Will Change Tomorrow I will change turn a new leaf become this new person I will exercise before breakfast not eat cookies between meals not fret over trivialities not run about getting upset that I’m not getting everything done Tomorrow I will change I say this every day