If You Really Want To Do It

Your Challenge Today:

If you want to do it, get busy!

By Bernadette Kathryn, LMT, IHLC

If you want to do it,

you do it.

There are no excuses.

~ Bruce Nauman

No excuses are valid when you are ready, and you want to do something; you find a way! This attitude goes back to the readiness and commitment that we have been talking about for a few days now. When all the pieces come together, and I am ready to do something, I do it. I get into action and begin.

The stages of readiness state that 

motivation for change exists along a continuum of readiness.

People progress through stages of change

in a spiral; transformation is not linear. 

• Pre-Contemplation – is a place where you are not aware that a change needs to take place. A person is unaware, resistant, argumentative, in denial of a need to change. One is unmotivated and disinterested.

• Contemplation – is a place where you are somewhat ambivalent about making any changes.

• Preparation – is a place where you shift from thinking about a change to taking small steps to change.

• Action – is the stage where you are actively involved in making the changes that you seek.

• Maintenance – is the stage when you are actively reaching your SMART GOALS and loving the results!

When we can move into action, we have bypassed the need for excuses. When we can identify the value of change, and the dream becomes more significant than the reasons, we will realize the success that we are after. It doesn’t matter what the goal is ~ we need to identify with the value of having achieved the goal, and we will find the motivation to realize it.

This sentiment is very accurate on all levels. I have a confession; I used to smoke cigarettes, ugh. I know, gross, right? It was a long time ago and only for a few years. However, I kept telling myself (a) I liked smoking and didn’t want to quit — this was the Pre-Contemplative stage, not wanting to make a change, no need for a change. (b) I couldn’t stop as long as other people around me were smoking, too tricky. But, it was apparently on my mind, and I knew deep down it was not a good, healthy habit. That was the Contemplative stage, where I was ambivalent and making excuses.

Then one fateful day, I went into the Health Club that I belonged to for an exercise class and we always started the class by taking a resting heart rate, just to see where we are coming into the class so we could monitor our pulse throughout the workout. That day I noticed my heart rate was significantly higher (after having had a cigarette) than on other days when I had not recently smoked. That made me realize just how potentially damaging smoking could be on one’s body and I felt I had to quit, this was taking me into the Preparation stage. Next, I decided to try Acupuncture as a method to help me stop, and I found an OMD to help me with this treatment, this was the Action stage. I thought about it for awhile (preparation) before I was able to say — that’s it — I have to quit, and I found a way to succeed (action). Before that moment, I made lots of excuses and so it is with whatever change we are resisting.

And, now I can happily report that I am and have been in Maintenance stage for many, many years!!

What stage are you in with the one change

you need and want to make?