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The last two weeks have, of course, been the school Easter holidays.
To be honest, it’s been difficult to distinguish them from any of the other days recently.
The schools have been closed for a full month now.
Over Easter weekend we made an effort to make it feel a bit more like a ‘holiday’.
We put the tent up in the garden, ate off our camp table (cooked inside, I must admit) and generally spent most of the time outside.
On the Friday I was putting out tent up with the help of my eldest son Oli, 11.
It was more tricky than normal as the garden is only just the width of the tent.
So you didn’t have the normal option of putting the tent poles out whole and sliding them straight through.
I was on one side unfolding and assembling the pole and feeding it through.
And Oli on the other, ready to receive.
The first few times I started feeding the poles through he started pulling from the other end.
A camping no-no, I’m sure you’re aware.
Pulling the poles causes them to come apart.
Often leaving bits of poles stuck inside the the tent sleeves.
So I explained this to Oli.
Tent assembly (and disassembly) is a ‘push’ not a ‘pull’
Kinda the opposite to behaviour change.
Although we often make the mistake of treating that like tent assembly.
Feeling that we need to ‘force’ ourselves to do something we don’t really want to do.
To use “willpower” and “motivation” to make us do something we’d rather not.
Or shame, blame and guilt trip ourselves into making different decisions.
Beating ourselves up along the way.
Setting ever bigger changes when we’ve struggled with the smaller ones.
And if any of the above was the answer, we’d have successfully made those changes already.
And ‘stuck’ with them.
They’re not.
Successful, lasting behaviour change has to a ‘pull’.
Something we want to do.
No willpower needed.
Things we choose to do because of the benefits they bring.
Sure, we may not have chosen the ‘process’ if it didn’t have the ‘outcome’ attached.
But we accept that’s all part of the same equation.
The better food and exercise choices made because we want to feel better immediately.
And feel even better and look better in the medium to longer term.
When we choose to phrase better food choices not as “restriction” and “dieting” and “going without” and “cutting out”………….
But as finding choices and recipes that we enjoy, are convenient and cost effective AND give us the energy to do the things we really want to do TODAY.
And to change the way our body looks and feels tomorrow.
When we concentrate of what outcomes the processes we choose give us…………
When we become pulled towards different behaviours because of how they benefit……………
Rather than pushed away from other choices because we kind feel we should…………….
It all becomes much easier.
Much love,
Jon ‘Once a boy scout’ Hall
