Three Tips for Keeping your New Years Resolution
January 1st already feels like it’s a million years ago, and yet it’s only been two weeks. Remember that feeling when you woke up in a new year, excited and motivated to start your new routine because this year, you were going to keep those resolutions. This was the year you were going to work […]
The Best Attitude for Change
If you are thinking about changing a behavior pattern (like overeating, smoking, spending too much money, drinking too much etc), it can be helpful to take stock of your attitude as you approach the problem. What do we mean by attitude? Our attitudes predispose us to respond positively or negatively toward certain people, issues, objects […]
Understanding Change
Changing a habit is a difficult thing to do. Even with the best of intentions, actually making behavior changes that last can be a slow and laborious process. This process of change has been studied and broken down, and understanding how people change can be helpful in your personal change process. Change is rarely a […]
Relapse Justification: A Normal Part of Change
You have made some pretty big changes in the past few weeks. You’ve cut down or stopped drinking and using substances, you’ve tried to reach out to friends and family to build up a support network, and you’ve worked to align your daily life with your values and goals for yourself. Overall, it’s been a […]
Let Values Motivate You To Change
We are often motivated to make a behavioral change because we want a bad feeling or a negative behavior to go away. If someone is drinking too much and getting into fights with their friends that they regret, maybe they will want to drink less or stop altogether. If someone is having panic attacks or […]
4 Ways to Stick To Your Goals During the Holidays
The holidays are the time of year when many people are at risk for losing sight of their behavioral goals (e.g., drinking less, losing 5 pounds less, quitting smoking, starting a new work out routine, etc). It’s the often the busiest time of year in terms of work (both professional and personal, considering all the […]
Learning Requires Practice
Fall is back to school time. Summer is over and students everywhere are making the transition to new routines and the anticipation of learning new things. Even though “learning new things” is the point, this is a great time of year to remember that learning news things is often difficult. Whether it is learning how […]
Inspirational Quote: Alice Walker
Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in […]
What’s the first step of habit change? Going off autopilot!
Changing behavior requires self-awareness. Changing a well-worn habit in particular requires that you move it from “automatic” to “conscious” so that you can make other behavioral choices. For example, if you don’t even notice that you are reaching for a cigarette as you get into your car, how are you ever going to decide to […]
Get Moving!
At CMC we are committed to helping people develop better relationships with their bodies as changing any destructive behavior pattern requires that you “take better care” of yourself! Exercise of course is key to taking better care of your body. Maybe you are just starting to think about adding exercise into your life and don’t […]
