So today I did something that I have wanted to do for over a year. I rode my bike from West Jordan to the U of U and back again for a grand total of 33 miles. I know that sounds simple to most people. They commute to work every day on bikes. But for me, this was a mountainous challenge I have faced.
I tend to let most of my life choices be guided by fear. Why? I don't really know, I wish I did. One of my biggest fears is of physical pain. I am tormented by thoughts of breaking bones, getting hit by cars, breaking my neck, etc etc. I will rarely participate in an activity if I think its too dangerous. This last winter we tried going skiing, which I've only been a few times before, and I was an awful nervous wreck. The snow was too icy, I was going to fast, and I just couldn't relax and have a good time.
Well among my fears of physical injury has been the fear of being hit by a car while riding my bike. I've always enjoyed riding bikes, when I was at SUU I had one that I used for simple commuting purposes. But it was no big deal, there is hardly any traffic in Cedar City. Salt Lake is a completely different story for me. So when I bought my road bike a 3 years ago I was thrilled to be able to use it to compete in triathlons... but I rarely had the guts to ride it. Unless of course it was out on the Legacy Parkway trail or somewhere where there was little to no traffic. So despite having had the bike for 3 years, I've only put just over 1,000 miles on it which has always bothered me. Despite a desire to ride more, it was always too inconvenient to load up the bikes and drive to a remote place with no traffic. So I would just run instead.
This year, I think around the New Years I committed to myself that I would begin to over come this fear. I always see people riding bikes, to commute to school/work, to train, for fun or whatever reasons else and every time I saw them I felt an increased sense of shame for not being more brave. I also felt an increase in commitment to my goal. So slowly, maybe just a few times a month Josh and I have worked on becoming more comfortable riding in traffic. And today I reached my goal, I rode to school! This may seem insignificant, but after months of working on trying to convince myself to do it, I did it!
I share with you this story for educational purposes. Not simply to brag. Because lets be honest, this really wasn't that big of a deal. But many of you out there are probably in similar situations. You know you need to be physically active. But something is holding you back, maybe its yourself or its your situation. Either way, you can overcome and triumph and I hope to help you understand better how to get yourself from just thinking about it, to doing it.
In the Health world there is a model on Change. Its called the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change.
There are many visual descriptions of this model and I have included as many of them as I can find to help you better understand what the process of change.
The Transtheoretical Model, is just that, its a model to help us understand the process of making habit changes and to form new habits. In order to help you understand the 6 phases that are shown to the left lets look at an example, my example. Riding my bike to school.
Precontemplation: In this stage the individual won't even contemplate or consider making a change. I will drive to school because I always do. The pros don't really exist in this phase.
Contemplation: In this stage, the individual is has considered the change of behavior. "Well I could ride my bike, but there are such and such reasons why I can't do it". In this phase the cons still outweigh the pros. But I am trying to think of reasons why "I should" ride my bike to school.
Preperation: In this stage, the pros of riding my bike to school have finally outweighed the cons and I am taking steps into preparing myself to ride to school. For example, I bought a better backpack I can commute with. I practiced riding in traffic around my house so that I'd feel more comfortable.
Action: In this stage you have finally made the behavior change, however, it is not yet a habit nor is it yet considered a permanent change. YAY! I finally rode my bike to school, and I have plans on riding again on Friday... If I can.
Maintenance: You are considered to be in maintenance stage if you have been actively performing the desired behavior change for at least 6 months. You are now considered to be stable and less likely to relapse or quit. But I mean less likely. It is still possible.
Termination/Relapse: The last stage, which isn't really a stage is the termination or relapse. At any point you may decide to quit the process of changing and go back to the original behavior. In my case, driving my car.
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So once you know the stages that doesn't obviously mean that you'll follow the stages in order or in any certain time frame. It is possible to relapse or quit at any time and its also possible to make a change so permanent that you are altered forever. The difference is really all found in your rating of importance.
One thing we know for certain is that if you think you can't do something you never will, and right there along with that is that if you think some behavior (or lack of performing a certain behavior) isn't important to your well being and success, odds are you will not perform said behavior, or quit performing that behavior.
So what is the moral? Well if there is something you need to do, whether its to get into shape, practice your sport, train, brush your teeth, etc but you are having a hard time doing it. See if you can't implement some of these strategies to help you (or your loved one) move from one stage to the next. But either way, be patient, this takes time, and there might be several relapses.
So... Here are some useful strategies to try.
1. Build Competence
Competence is the belief you have in your ability to perform the certain behavior, and to perform it well enough to succeed. If you're struggling with what we call self efficacy (the self belief of competence) then you will probably not even try to succeed. A good example of this is shown in the graph below. Lets take the behavior change, of quitting smoking. Studies have shown that "normally" in the first 2 stages (precontemplation-PC and C-contemplation) self efficacy is very low. So for a smoker, they may not believe they have the ability to quit, so why bother trying? Temptation is too high to overcome at this point.
By building self efficacy (through building competence) you decrease the feelings of temptations towards the negative behavior and increase the behavior itself.
So how do you do this? Well practice makes perfect. Start by working on fundamental skills, overcoming barriers that are preventing the behavior change, provide social support for the new behavior. This can be applied in any situation from quitting smoking to learning to riding your bike to school.
For me, first I had to build skills, I practiced riding in traffic till I became more comfortable. I overcame barriers by buying a better commuting backpack. I created social support by watching and speaking to my peers on campus who rode to work. And slowly, I started to feel more and more confident until I was able to successfully make the ride.
2. Overcome Barriers
Sometimes there are definite obstacles in our way that prevent us from doing the things we need or want to do. For example, what if that someone doesn't have a bike, you don't have money for a gym pass, or you don't feel like you have time to exercise. Most of these barriers can be overcome, albeit some will take longer than others.
3. Increase the Pros
One good strategy is to make a pro-con table listing all of the reasons why you should change that particular behavior and the reasons why you shouldn't. Include everything possible on here. While you can use strategy #2 to cross out some of the cons, you can also work on increasing both the number of pros as well as the priority of the pros. Meaning sometimes telling someone that if they quit smoking now they won't die of lung cancer in 12 years. Well.. most people are only concerned about immediate consequences so that may not really have any impact on them. But what about they will smell better? Exercising will feel better. There teeth won't be stained, etc. Below is a guideline for the decision balance and how it affects which stage you are in.
4. Appeal to the Emotions
One way, which is not necessarily effective, but can sometimes work is to heighten emotional urgency. This can be done by scaring yourself or the person into thinking that this behavior change is necessary. Another way is to make them very excited, guilty etc. This is not as effective, as these emotions do quickly ware off. But it is one option.
5. Provide Positive Peer Pressure/Support
The last way that I will share is to alter your surroundings. If everyone that you hang out with gets completely smashed on the weekends from partying hard, and you decide you want to quit partying, its going to take a lot more than good intentions to change. As independently minded as we'd all like to think we are, well we're not. We tend to have the same priorities as the people we spend the most time with. So if your friends all value exercise, you probably will too.
So when you're trying to make a change, look around at your support group. They will either greatly help or hinder. Talk to them. Ask for their support. Try to make changes together when appropriate. Or, worse come to worse, find a new support group.
