Stage Three

Stage 3

“Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you.”

— Proverbs 4:25

Planning Your Personal D-Day      

We live in a world that is accustomed to 30-second commercials that offer instant solutions. But we shouldn’t be surprised when the easy solutions don’t work: There are no magic bullets, no simple solutions on the path to deep and lasting change.

In this stage, you work on making change your No. 1 priority. You can’t move into stage 4 until freeing yourself from the habit becomes your highest priority. Your life will go in the direction of your most dominant thoughts. When you focus on the past, your thoughts hold you back by causing you to relive events over and over.

Blaming ourselves for things that went wrong in the past is the most self-destructive habit of all. It’s easy for our families and friends to see when a habit like drinking, overeating, or overspending is destroying our lives. But it isn’t always so easy, not even for the people closest to us, to know when guilt and self-blame are destroying our possibility for happiness.

The solution is to accept responsibility for yourself, to realize that you can decide to take charge of your life. There is a scene in Disney’s animated film, The Lion King, which illustrates this in a humorous and powerful way. Simba has been hiding the truth from himself ever since he ran away from Pride Rock. He has constructed all sorts of verbal cages for himself: Hakuna Matata, he says, No worries.

But he isn’t happy, and he worries all the time. He blames himself for his father’s death. Simba is destined to be king of the Pride Lands, but guilt and self-blame keep him from taking action. Rafiki, the wise, old monkey and high priest of Simba’s future kingdom, tracks Simba down and tries to bring him to his senses. To bring home the message, Rafiki hits Simba on the head with his staff.

“Why did you do that?” asks Simba, rubbing the sore spot on the top of his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” answers Rafiki, “It’s in the past.”   

Simba needed to be jolted into action, and Rafiki’s staff proved to be an effective tool. Of course, if you’re in a helping relationship with a person who is trapped in a cage of guilt and self-blame, you must never hit him on the head with your staff. That technique works wonders in cartoons, but it will destroy a helping relationship in real life.

So how do you jolt a person into action if he’s stuck in the same bad habits that threatened to ruin Simba’s life?

Here’s an idea: Make popcorn, get comfortable, and invite him to watch The Lion King with you. If the person is in stage 1 or stage 2, the movie will hit him on the head for sure. It may even jolt him into action and accelerate the cycle of self-change.   

As soon as you’ve decided to change, it’s time to schedule your Decision Day. Set a date and announce your intention to take action: “I will stop smoking on the first of the month.” Put your commitment in writing.

One of the keys to successful self-change is to develop your own plan. The critical element in any program is the confidence of the person who is using it. If you believe the program will work, you have a better chance of making it work. The best way to do that is to create your own plan.

Preparing for a total lifestyle change

The key to success in this stage is reevaluating your life. The greatest motivator is a vision of what your life will be like when you break your bad habit.

Being prepared for change means that you set goals for yourself. The best way to do this is to write a personal mission statement. Make a list of the benefits of changing. How does each of these benefits help you achieve your goals in life? 

The key to freeing yourself from bad habits is to change your lifestyle. A total lifestyle change isn’t something that happens overnight. It happens one day at a time, as soon as you begin to focus on the solution instead of the problem. The process of total lifestyle change starts when you begin to think more about the present than the past.

Don’t be surprised if you’re not completely sure that you’re ready to break your habit at this stage. It’s not about quitting cold turkey; no one is asking you to do it today. Forcing yourself to quit before you’re mentally and emotionally prepared to change usually backfires. Quitting cold turkey usually doesn’t work at this stage. In this stage, you’re getting ready to quit.

The best way to free yourself from any bad habit is to replace your old behavior with a more active lifestyle. Your commitment to an exercise program is one of the keys to breaking a bad habit.

I started smoking when I was 22 years old. I had never taken a single puff on a cigarette before then. When my smoking turned into a two-pack-a-day habit, I started to worry about my health.

Like many smokers, I spent five years smoking and another five years trying to quit. I switched to a pipe for a while in the hope that the trouble it takes to prepare a pipe and clean it would curb my smoking, but it didn’t slow me down enough to make a difference. Eventually I went back to smoking cigarettes.

I realized that I was going to need a plan. I had noticed that many ex-smokers substituted snacking on junk food for their former cigarette habit. Their rapid weight gain made me wonder if the remedy wasn’t worse than the disease. I didn’t want to fall into the same trap, so I planned to use sugarless gum to satisfy my craving to put something in my mouth.

I was teaching at the time, and back then I was still using a chalkboard in the classroom. When I was trying to quit smoking, I would sometimes catch myself holding a stick of chalk between my fingers as if it were a cigarette. I almost put a stick of chalk in my mouth once. I’m sure it looked funny to the students, but I didn’t worry about it. They knew I was trying to quit, and their encouragement and support played an important role in my success.

My plan to free myself from nicotine included an exercise program. I theorized that if I punished my body enough, it would cry out for me to take better care of it. Some of my students had a basketball team in a local league. I was 33 at the time, so they were 10 to 15 years younger than I was. I told them that I wanted to start playing again, and they invited me to a practice game.

I had been a decent basketball player in my teens, but I hadn’t played competitive sports for a long time. I played about 10 minutes the first time, and when it was over, I told myself that I didn’t need to punish my body that much. But the kids wouldn’t let me quit.

I didn’t stick to the date I set for breaking my habit. It took about a month of lapses after my target date had come and gone before I quit for good. During that month, I would steal a smoke from time to time—never more than one cigarette in a day. I didn’t know it then, but I was still in stage 2 when I set my target date. I was aware of the damage that smoking was doing to my body and to my relationships, but I hadn’t made a serious commitment to change.

My lapses taught me that breaking the habit was going to cost more than I thought. I started my real preparation one day after my target date, the first time I lapsed. The month-long period of lapses after my target date became my stage 3—the preparation period that allowed me to be successful. That’s not the best way to do it, but it worked.   

The most important part of my preparation was my commitment to a more active lifestyle. My new teammates wouldn’t let me quit. I played on their team for two years. I paid for new uniforms and warm-up suits before one important statewide tournament.

I didn’t realize it then, but I understand now that the new uniforms were a motivator and a reward—my motivation to stay committed to a healthier lifestyle, and my teammates’ reward for supporting me.           

  

Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the father of the aerobics movement, has said that maximum health benefits are obtained by participating in any activity that increases your heart rate for at least 30 minutes, three times a week.

Thirty minutes of aerobic exercise is enough to release endorphins into the brain. Endorphins are chemical substances produced by the body that are many times more powerful than morphine. Endorphins are responsible for the sensation of peace, well-being, and exhilaration commonly experienced by people who exercise regularly.

If you make a commitment to exercise for just 90 minutes a week, it will make you happier and it will help you replace your self-destructive habits with healthy new habits.

It doesn’t have to be competitive basketball. Brisk walking, swimming, or an exercise class will do the trick. Every lasting change costs something in terms of time, energy, and money. But if you stick with it, the payoff is a thousand to one.

You can’t exercise away all the temptations to go back to your old habit, of course. You need a plan that works 24/7. The best alternative for self-destructive habits is active diversion. Keeping busy—keeping your mind off the temptation to drink, smoke, or overeat—is the strategy that all successful self-changers use. Exercise is the healthiest substitute for bad habits, but it’s not the only substitute that works.

You are the only person who can know what will work for you. Whatever keeps you busy and takes your mind off your craving for a drink, a piece of cake, or a shopping spree will work for you. It has to be something you enjoy. Playing your favorite game, reading a book, listening to music, cleaning the house, or working on a home improvement project are all healthy alternatives.

Beware of procrastination

The biggest danger in this stage is procrastination. Try these strategies at the first sign that you’re trying to put off your commitment:

·       Weigh the benefits of acting versus the effects of procrastinating.

·       Set achievable goals. Trying to pay off your credit card next month will only set you up for failure. Paying off the credit card in six months or one year gives you a much greater expectation of success.

·       Get started. Do something. Sign up for an exercise class or go for a ride on your bike. Activity is the best antidote for procrastination.  

·       Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not perfect all the time. It’s not about perfection—it’s about making progress one step at a time.  

Knowing yourself is the key to successful planning. What are the real reasons for your habit? What are the real causes of your procrastination? Your greatest enemy at this stage is fear of failure. That’s normal. Don’t let it bother you. Just set a date and stick to it.

Be sure to set a date that’s in the near future—two weeks from today, not two months from today. If you give yourself too much time, you’ll be more likely to procrastinate.