Book 3: Practical Skills for Lasting Behaviour Change
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Book 3: Practical Skills for Lasting Behaviour Change
Wanting to change unwanted or non-preferred behaviour is an everyday wish, want or even need if not urgency for some. We all know what it feels like when we are seemingly at the mercy of our anger outbursts, of over or undereating, biting our fingernails, being short and snappy, going hard, withdrawing, swearing, an addiction – the list is endless.
The market is full to the brim with many behaviour change strategies that can be described as management, relief and solution-based; they are failing us dismally as, at the very best, they offer only short-term but rarely LASTING behaviour change.
Have you ever wanted, or even tried to change your own behaviour or the behaviour of other people? No doubt the answer is yes. And have your attempts at behaviour change been successful in the short term as well as the long term? All too frequently the answer is no.
The Body Life Skills program recognises and embraces that lasting change is our way forward if we are to bring true change to the quality of the life of individuals, families, workplaces and society as a whole.
This third book in the Body Life Skills series introduces simple, practical and effective ways that will support lasting behaviour change in both a personal and professional capacity.
I have been working in the field of Behaviour Change since 2002. This has included being associated with various industries such as Education, Mental Health, Disability, Drug and Alcohol, Justice and Behaviour Management. I have also supported in bringing lasting behaviour change to families and relationships, businesses and organisations and many individuals. And one of my questions has consistently been:
Why are behaviour-related issues getting worse, when in fact we have more available resources to support than ever before?
This does not make sense … unless … our current resources are not the answer. Could it be that our ways and accepted means of addressing the growing concerns of behaviour change, mental health, psychological wellbeing and all associated industries are not working?
Could it be that we are not addressing the root cause of what is really going on in each of these industries and with each individual seeking behaviour change?
In the fields associated with behaviour, the word management is often used. It is in this word ‘management’ that a significant part of the answer to our ever-worsening statistics can be found.
Management will at best ‘manage’ a current situation and will for the short-term keep a current situation so-called ‘at bay’. But does management offer lasting change? The short-term and the long-term answer is – NO.
It is my experience that lasting change will only occur when a person perceives they have developed the skills to respond to the demands, challenges and general experiences of their day-to-day life; they then feel equipped to respond to what life is presenting. Thus, if we attempt to ‘manage behaviour’ without addressing ‘life’, the success of behaviour change cannot but be short-lived.
We are all experiencing life all day, every day. However, not everyone, if anyone, has self-mastered each and every aspect of life.
Is it possible that all unwanted behaviours are the result of a person not feeling equipped to respond to life? And thus, when people perceive they do not have the required skills to respond to life and all that life is presenting, it is likely that anxiety will be present which, when left unaddressed, is then expressed as unwanted or non-preferred behaviours, all the way from minor to major deviations from a state of being at ease where we feel 80 - 100% equipped to deal with what life is presenting at any given moment.
Could it be that life is presenting an endless array and continual supply of lessons for each and every one of us?
Our true classroom is in fact LIFE.
Yes, our educational classrooms are very much needed, but who teaches us the skills to respond to life outside of the classroom? Who teaches us the practical skills to deal with and heal –
- Grief, loss and death
- Failure, winning and losing
- Separation
- Negative comments from those we love and those we don’t know
- Jealousy
- Being told to harden up when really we are sensitive
- Making mistakes and being corrected
- People being mean
- Being left out and not being included
- Life not happening the way we expected it
- Not knowing how to do a task or learn something new
- Current or past trauma?
Lasting behaviour change will only occur when people embrace SKILLS. That is, it is not until a person perceives they have in their repertoire the required skills to respond to life that their body will be at ease and free of anxiety during that particular part of life. It is through skills that lasting behaviour change will occur.
Through my many years of clinical experience I have been honoured and privileged to witness first-hand thousands of clients, families, relationships, businesses, schools, organisations etc., who themselves have changed the quality of their own life and their workplace by embracing the Body Life Skills program. It is when clients embrace that learning new skills is essential to lasting behaviour change that we see people’s lives dramatically change.
However, as we often share at Fabic, people either love what we teach or they hate what we teach. Why?
- People love the Body Life Skills program because it is based on self-responsibility … learning and implementing new skills to respond to what life is presenting to them.
- People hate the Body Life Skills program because it is based on self-responsibility – some prefer not to have to be the one to learn and implement new skills to respond to life … YET.
However, I know without any doubt that it is only through self-responsibility that lasting behaviour change will occur.
This book, the third of the series, brings a focus to SKILLS.
Firstly, this book will review an array of foundational information to ensure the reader has the basic platform to understand and use the Body Life Skills program. This information has already been discussed in much greater detail in book 1 but is included here for those who use this book as a resource without books 1 or 2.
Secondly, this book will focus on describing an array of skills that people can either learn and/or be taught to support anyone to feel equipped to respond to life, thus leading to lasting behaviour change.
I trust you will find this information supportive in bringing lasting change to your own life, and the lives of others.
Filed under
Behaviour, Addiction, Over eating, Anxiety, Mental health
