What is the Key to Inspiring Change?
Sometimes inertia gets the best of us. We get comfortable, and change is hard. But often, sticking with the same choices and habits can lead to dissatisfaction or negative consequences, and a shift is the best thing for us. Maybe you’re in a rut, and it’s making you miserable. Or what’s been working isn’t anymore. You might be in crisis—your basic needs are not being met, or your life feels out of control. It’s these feelings—the misery, the existence of crisis—that tend to drive people to seek mental health assistance.
When we’re faced with the choice of making a change or experiencing misery, what do we do? What helps and what doesn’t?
What helps inspire change? Identifying a specific goal: If we are going to make a change, we must be clear about what exactly we want to change. Doing this gives us direction and focus. We need a SMART goal: one that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. For example, saying, “I want a better life” is vague. What is “better” to one person might feel worse to another. Instead, we might decide that “by the end of the year, I want to have more happy days than sad days.” This is more specific, and it’s something that we can clearly say was either achieved or not achieved at year’s end.
Excerpted from Parkview Health
