How To Make Health Changes That Last: A Guide to Lasting Behaviour Change
I’m embarrassed to admit that when I was younger, I cared very little about my health. Growing up with Italian grandparents who had lived through poverty, food scarcity, and the war, it was blasphemous to not finish every bite on your plate, no matter how full you felt. I ate a lot, beyond the point of fullness. In hindsight I now recognize I was regularly binge eating. I also binged on a lot of food that I knew didn’t make me feel good – I’d get acne, I was uncomfortable in my body (and weight), I would miss periods, and when I’d get them my period pain would be way worse. But I continued to engage in these unhealthy eating patterns anyway because they were comforting to me.
I reached a critical point in my very early 20s. My acne got so severe that it was impacting my quality of life. I’d stay in because of how bad my skin had gotten – I wouldn’t dare let anyone see me that way. There was no chance I’d leave the house without makeup. I’d cry staring at myself in the mirror, every, single, day. So, I decided something needed to be done. I needed to start prioritizing my health and coming to terms with behaviours that weren’t good for me.
It started out slowly and it was not an overnight process. In fact, changing my diet, and what ended up being a lifestyle overhaul has taken years. It still very much is a work in progress.
I will admit I am a person with a lot of self-discipline, but I’m a strong believer that ANYONE can make positive and lasting behaviour changes.
In this blog, I’m going to take you through my ultimate guide to making lasting behaviour changes. I’ll circle back to how I fit this into my life, so you understand the highs, lows, and intricacies of actually making a change stick around. Hopefully afterwards, you’ll feel confident you can do it too 😊.
Choosing Your Goal + Getting Ready For Change
Why Is This Meaningful + Consistently Envisioning Success
The absolute first step is thinking about your goal. Start out with the basics like “I want to clear my skin” or “I want to eat to support my health”. This will help get the ball rolling, but it’s often not enough to enact change – we need to go much deeper.
What we really need to do is understand your WHY. Why is this goal meaningful to you? If you were to achieve this goal, how would that positively impact your life? What would your life LOOK like if you achieved this goal?
For me clearing my skin was meaningful because having acne isolated me. I would isolate from friends, family, and it prevented me from forming new relationships. I wanted meaningful connection, and I wanted to be able to have that without feeling self-conscious about my appearance. That’s much deeper than, ‘I just want to clear my skin’. So think about the TRUE underlying meaning behind your goal, because that is the real motivator.
Once you have that in mind, consistently envision success. Consistently imagine what your life would look like if you actually achieved your goal.
All of this will help you get super clear on your goals, and help you remain motivated in the coming months, years, etc. while you’re making it happen.
breaking down your goal
Now that you’ve chosen your goal, and understand the meaning behind it, we need to break it down into many small action items.
For me it looked something like this:
Remove foods I KNOW are triggering acne
Drink lots of water
Develop a healthier relationship with food – eat to fullness only
Find stress management techniques that will actually work for me
Work with a practitioner who can investigate underlying causes
Obviously, this will look different for everyone! If you’re trying to develop a healthier relationship with food, maybe it looks like eating 3 consistent meals every day, not putting foods into a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ category, eating when you’re hungry, and stopping when you’re full.
If you’re trying to lose weight, it may include consuming nutrient dense foods (such as protein & fiber) regularly, exercising several times per week, and working with a practitioner to rule out any hormone imbalances.
The beauty of breaking goals down into smaller action items is that it becomes WAY more manageable. It also helps you develop a thoughtful and deliberate plan of action. If you’re struggling with this part of it, a Naturopathic Doctor can be hugely helpful here.
schedule everything in + plan in advance
Now that you know the smaller action items you need to take, it needs to go into your schedule. I know firsthand, if it’s not scheduled in, or if you haven’t planned it in advance, it’s VERY UNLIKELY it will happen.
For me, I created a water drinking schedule, because it otherwise wouldn’t happen. I created a food schedule – I would choose one food each month to remove from my diet to see if it made a difference to my acne or how I felt in my body overall. I also scheduled in regular acupuncture appointments and psychotherapy appointments, and I STUCK TO THEM. I didn’t cancel when things didn’t go my way or when I felt things weren’t changing. I gave myself a schedule, and a timeline of one year, and I promised myself to see it through.
drop the ‘all or nothing’/perfectionist mentality
Now if you’re anything like me, you’re a perfectionist. If something isn’t done to perfection or your plan isn’t working perfectly, it’s very easy to give up entirely. So, before you even get started on your goals and the behaviour changes required to hit them, we need to reframe this way of thinking from the outset. Go into it expecting that failures WILL happen often throughout this process and try to be at peace with that.
Taking Action
We have your goal, the real & meaningful reason behind it, your smaller action items, your iron-clad schedule, and a solid mentality. So, it’s time to act.
Full disclosure, this is where things get challenging. This is where those many and frequent failures will start to surface.
So, while you’re starting to implement your plan, here are my steps for overcoming difficulties and persevering through failures.
remaining consistent, yet flexible
There are two CRITICAL pieces when it comes to making health behaviour changes: consistency and flexibility.
Consistency – consistency really is key when it comes to behaviour changes. I say it to my patients all the time – the people who see lasting change are the ones that commit to consistency. Consistency doesn’t mean perfection. It’s just a promise to continue working on your goals and action items a little bit every single day. For example, committing to exercising three times per week, and spending the other days of the week holding that boundary.
Flexibility – flexibility is also key to making lasting behaviour changes. Things come up in life, and sometimes those things will take priority over your goal. Being flexible in when you complete your action items can help you stay on track with your goals even when life gets in the way. For example, perhaps you committed to exercise three times per week, but you remain flexible on the timing of those workouts. If work has prevented you from hitting those three workouts during the weekdays, then being open to completing the other two workouts on the weekends instead will still help you achieve your goal.
As you can see both are super important! I’ve personally had weeks of great consistency and routine, followed by weeks of being flexible but remaining committed. The important takeaway here is to be open to both of these concepts.
identifying your triggers
Think about the days you were unsuccessful in implementing your action items. Think about what events, feelings, thoughts, or behaviours led to you being unsuccessful here.
For me, I found I consistently failed at my action items when I wouldn’t carve out enough time in my day for self-care. On the days I’d overwork it was very hard to drink enough water, eat at proper meal times therefore leading to bingeing at night, or effectively manage my stress levels. I also found I consistently failed on the days where I was totally out of my routine, *ahem* the weekend. Since I was able to identify these triggering events, I was easily able to problem solve around them. For example, no matter how stressful or busy my work day was, I was setting aside at least 10 minutes at lunch to meditate. This helped ground me and refocus on my goals & action items. On the weekends, I tried to make it as fool-proof as possible for myself – I wouldn’t schedule things that made me compromise on my boundaries and the things I wanted to complete.
For you, your triggers might be, and likely will be very different! It might be a particular thought pattern or feeling that makes you want to throw in the towel. It might be a certain behaviour, like not eating at regular meal times, that throws you off course. In any case, you need to sit down, be honest with yourself, and really reflect on what is leading up to and setting you up for these failures. That way you can also figure out workaround solutions.
Questioning Your Resistances, Frequently
Now, there will be times that no matter what you do, how hard you try, or how badly you want it, making changes seem completely impossible. If this resonates with you, take a breath, this is normal. If this is where you find yourself, then we have to question where this resistance to change is truly coming from.
Here are some things to consider:
First, what is it that you’re resisting? For example, if you’re trying to change your diet, are you worried that you’ll never be able to enjoy the foods you love again? Are you resisting getting into a restrictive lifestyle because that doesn’t seem like a good way to live? Be specific and honest about what it is that you’re resisting.
Once you know what you’re resisting, ask yourself what your fears are around this behaviour change. Are you worried that this behavioural change will negatively impact your relationships? For example, not drinking at social events and perhaps losing a way you’ve connected with friends in the past. We need to figure out what you’re fearful of. To that end, recognize that resistance usually isn’t fearing change but fearing loss. What are you scared to lose by implementing this new behaviour change?
Finally, get curious. Don’t meet resistance to change with negative self-talk, but instead meet resistance as a way to learn more about yourself. Resistance might actually help you understand your core values, and possibly even your own boundaries.
get help
Sometimes despite our best efforts, we still need professional help, and that’s okay! If you’re struggling to hit your action items, reach out to the most appropriate practitioner to help you! For example, if you’re struggling with diet, seek out help from a nutritionist. If you’re struggling with resistance to change and fear of loss, seek out help from a psychotherapist. Working with a practitioner can help you with implementing your action items, overcoming your barriers to success, and help hold you accountable.
Maintaining Results
If you’ve made it this far – good for you! That means you’ve achieved your action items, and are well on your way to hitting your ultimate goal, if you haven’t already. Sadly, many people never get here.
Even more disappointing though is how many people get this far and then fall off track! I see it all the time in my practice – we achieve the results we’re hoping for, we loosen the reins on the action items and behavioural changes, and before we know it, we’ve slipped right back into old habits.
Maintaining your results is just as important as the first two steps! Once my acne was clear, I didn’t just add dairy back into my diet, or stop meditating, or stop taking care of myself. I had to continue with all of the new habits I formed in order to see change that has now lasted me years. To this day, this is still the piece I have to work on, and trust me there are days where it’s super tempting to just not try. Old habits die hard but keeping the following in mind can help you on the more difficult days.
Reconnecting To & Redefining Your Goal
A lot of us fall off track because we’ve hit our goal, and once we’ve achieved that goal, a lot of our original motivation naturally goes away.
I find it helpful to remember what you’ve gained from these behaviour changes. For me it was freedom to go outside without makeup, freedom to meet new people and do new things without feeling self-conscious. Although once I hit my goal, I no longer felt self-conscious, it was very easy to remember how this all felt for me before my skin was clear. Wanting to prevent ever going back to that place, helped me reconnect to that original goal, and on most days, this is more than enough motivation for me.
In other cases, we need to redefine our goals because the original goal isn’t motivating enough. For example, maybe your original goal was to eat healthier foods or exercise more regularly so you could lose weight to keep up with your toddler. If your children are now school-aged and not as physically demanding, the underlying meaning of your goal likely needs to change. You likely need to redefine your goal as supporting your overall health so you can live a long, healthy life to watch your children grow up vs. being able to keep up with them physically.
For me, I found out my acne was a by product of having PCOS. Now on the days where clear skin isn’t motivating enough, I remember my BIG, newer goals – reducing the risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases that come with PCOS.
having a support system in place
I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. If you don’t have support from your family, friends, whoever you live with, it will be 100000000x harder to maintain your results. The people in your life need to respect and make space for these behaviour changes. For example, if you want to change your eating habits, whoever you live with (and are making meals with) probably need to be on board as well, LONG-TERM, not when you’re just getting started.
If the people in your life are not supportive, seeking out support from a professional can also be really impactful in maintaining results. Checking in with a Naturopathic Doctor every 3-6 months to ensure you’re on track with your goals, and to just have someone hold you accountable is a great way to ensure you maintain your results.
remaining kind to yourself
Even when we hit out goals, those failures will arise. Be okay with them, and understand failures are meant to happen frequently. For example, I ate out of alignment with my skin throughout this most recent holiday season (hello dairy). That doesn’t mean I stopped trying. I accepted the setback (/me just enjoying the holidays) for what it was and got back on track when I returned to my normal routine on January 3rd.
Give yourself grace, commit to consistency, and remember that flexibility and kindness are essential even in this maintenance phase.
A Final Word
I want to close off saying I KNOW lasting behaviour change is possible. Not just because I’ve done it myself, but because I’ve had the true honour of being that support person for my patients, and I’ve seen hundreds of them succeed.
Remember, anyone is capable of making LASTING health behaviour changes. We just need to go into it with a meaningful goal, a solid plan, acceptance of failure, a lot of grace, and the willingness to just try again tomorrow.
If you want more information about how Naturopathic Medicine can help support your health behaviour changes, you can check that out here!
Ready to make a change?
If you want to learn more about how Naturopathic Medicine can support your health, feel free to reach out to the clinic, or book a complimentary consult with me here.
With loving compassion,
Dr. Alessia Milano, ND