Healthy lifestyle change is hard. Really hard. Comfortable lifestyle change is how we can make it easy. When our goal is healthy change that lasts a lifetime, very slow and very steady wins the race. When I work with clients who tend to be ambitious, I often notice they want to take on a lot at once.
“This week I want to add more veggies to meals, drink more water, go to bed at 10pm sharp, and start an exercise routine.”
First of all, they deserve to be commended for their ambition. They have determination and self-confidence, both strengths! Though, there is often an initial surge of motivation when making a new change that lasts a few days or maybe a couple weeks, then the inevitable period when that initial motivation fades. The dreaded wall. If we can set ourselves up to continue with our new healthy habits when this wall hits, we’ll be unstoppable. But we can do even better. Comfortable change is an approach that allows us to avoid the wall completely.
I like to introduce the idea of “comfortable change” to my ambitious clients. The idea is that we make tweaks so tiny that we never hit a wall. We won’t have to rely on motivation because the changes we’re making don’t require lots of willpower.
When we make any change, it can be easy to think that our new direction will remain forever. Nothing is further from the truth. We can tweak our path whenever we want.
Captain of a Ship Analogy
Imagine you’re a fearless adventurer, a captain of a ship exploring the vast ocean. In command of your mighty vessel, you conquer the waves, enjoying fresh seafood every night. One day when navigating, you decide that you’re tired of your current course and want to head in a new direction. You could whip the ship around and make a dramatic 90 degree turn. It would likely be a violent maneuver and your ship might get damaged, or you might get hurt, in the process. Another approach is to make a 2 or 3 degree turn every couple of minutes. Less dramatic and you may not even notice you’re changing direction. Yet, do this a number of times and suddenly you’re heading in a totally different direction. This is comfortable change. It takes a patient person, but can be rewarding, and dare I say, easy.
Comfortable Lifestyle Change in Action
Let’s see an example with hydration. Say that Billy is someone who drinks lots of soda and wants to drink more water to feel more energized and less sluggish from day to day. One approach Billy could take is a dramatic turn by cutting out soda completely and aiming for 8 full glasses of water per day.
However, Billy is thoughtful about the long-term and knows this likely won’t be sustainable beyond his initial surge of motivation. Another approach is the comfortable change approach. Billy starts with a tiny change of adding in one extra cup of water 3 days a week right when he wakes up. He does this for a full week or two. Then, he bumps it up to an extra cup each day. After a couple more weeks, he matches water with soda – for each root beer he drinks, he’ll drink a cup of water. After a couple more weeks, he decides he’s ready to drink one fewer root beer 3 days a week. And so on until Billy feels good with where he’s at.
Over a couple months, Billy has made a significant behavior change in the core area of hydration. He has achieved comfortable lifestyle change. At any particular turn, it was a minor change. He now has better blood circulation, more energy, gets better sleep, feels more confident physically, experiences less stress, all of which leads to his family/friends/partner enjoying his company more, so better social connection that further increases his health, and on and on. Billy invested a little work up front and now gets to enjoy numerous benefits for years to come. And since he made these changes gradually with the comfortable change approach, he has an excellent chance of the change sticking, leading him to enjoy these healthy benefits for life. Billy has learned that no change is too tiny to count. They all count because they build on each other.
Comfortable Lifestyle Change for Lifelong Results
Dramatic changes are uncomfortable, stressful on our body, and therefore usually don’t last. What good is losing 10 pounds now if it’ll just come back in 6 months? We want lifetime results! We could simply hope that our motivation will be strong enough when we hit a wall. With comfortable lifestyle change, we avoid the wall completely.
