Behavior Change 101

Behavior Change 101
Make a Plan

It's day 11 and you’ve been dutifully answering your daily check-ins. You receive an insight based on your own patterns. It could be anything, but let’s say your insight is “wake up later” – I know, you’re thinking “I love this app.” If I keep checking in will the app tell me to drink more wine or eat more chocolate”? (Not going to happen.)

But then, you realize that waking up later is actually difficult for you. You’d like to sleep in but your brain pops awake and you start to worry, toss and turn, and there’s no rest for you. Vira will help you to achieve your behavior-change goals with tips, thought-provoking questions, and resources- like this one- that give you strategies and information. Then you and your coach will make a plan. Plans come in all shapes and sizes, so let's take a look at characteristics of a good plan.


Set a Goal.  Strong plans have realistic and specific goals.

When a goal is specific, you can make a plan to reach it and you can see your progress. A specific goal might be to sleep 3 extra hours a night. So luxurious. Why didn’t you think of that before? In contrast- the goal to ‘get more sleep’ isn’t specific. How much more? How will you know if you reached your goal?

But-
 

Goals also need to be realistic. A realistic goal is one that you have a good chance of meeting.  Set a goal that is just a little bit more than you are already doing. Three extra hours may work on vacation, when your mind is free and you don’t have to be anywhere.

If you set a goal that is too small, you will likely not see an effect on your mood. If the goal is too big, it may feel exciting (briefly) and then it will feel like just too much, and you may not even try. So in our example,  a better goal is to sleep an extra ½ hour a night (maybe an hour on weekends).


Make a Plan. What steps will help you to reach your goal. After you’ve read your tips, given some thought to the questions, maybe dug deep and read the resources, decide on a few ideas to try. Again, be specific and realistic. For example:

 

1. I will go to bed an hour later each night so my body has a strong need for sleep.
2. I will put on a meditation app if I wake up before I need to start the day.
3. I will only use the bed for sleep. No more working, eating, socializing (?) in bed.