Resolutions for a healthier life are always profitable and initially they can be implemented well. But then come the “inner pig dog” and the power of habit. After just a few days, the desire to improve no longer seems so great and soon you are back in the old rut. But there is another way. You just need a little strategy.
The main problem
Most goal setting requires behavioral change, which we all know becomes more difficult as the years go by. Losing weight, exercising more, taking a more relaxed view of the world, or quitting smoking aren’t exactly easy to implement. The reason for this lies in the brain, in the so-called limbic system, the power center of our emotions. Rational, reasonable inputs such as “I should do something for my health again” don’t stand a chance here. Because the emotion does not ask for profit and success. It seeks satisfaction of needs now and immediately. The will alone is therefore not enough on the path to improvement. An experience must come, so that we silence the inner pig dog in us.
Victory of the feelings
Usually it is the bitter experiences that ultimately force us to come to an understanding. For example, when smokers come down with a respiratory infection and overhear the body’s signals until the cough becomes chronic and painful, the chances are very good that they will renounce the vice. Or if overweight people are found to have high blood sugar levels and the doctor urgently recommends a change in diet, losing weight is easy because one has been directly confronted with the consequences of being overweight.
Positive motivates
But also beautiful experiences and positive thinking motivate. The corresponding images are stored in the brain and remain significantly longer and more intensively retrievable than heard or read. If the smoker with the chronic cough is in a very bad way and remembers how he used to be able to jump over meadows without coughing, this image alone could be a decisive motivator.
The images enable a bridge between reason and feeling and can thus also help the resolution rather from theory into practice. The more positivity we associate with change, the more likely it is to achieve one’s personal goals.
