Setbacks
A Matter of Management Tactics
Why is it hard to keep up and sustain health goals? Despite our best intentions and the knowledge to support our efforts, it is a difficult task. It's so frustrating and taxing it even pushes people to quit any noble or necessary cause.
A skill few possess is avoiding taking failed attempts at change personally. But the truth is that experiencing setbacks in any transformation journey is not a character flaw. It is a human condition.
To experience setbacks, or more precisely the management of setbacks, is an inevitable part of transformations, is a pivotal step in behavioral change. Therefore is not a thing whether setbacks happen or not; it's whether you manage them well or forfeit the opportunity of improvement.
There are options if you go beyond a black or white approach.
It is beneficial to unlock the value of setbacks to support any transformation journey and every health journey. But first, you must shift perspectives and mindsets around them. To do this, we must become aware of the experience, explore the setback with curiosity and compassion, not judgment. How can that be, you ask?
Keep reading if you want to try a few shifts to balance out the effects of setbacks in your mission to endorse healthier lifestyle changes.
Not a character flaw, but part of the human condition!
The first thing you need to grasp is that to experience setbacks, or to resist change and go back to unhealthy habits, is an innate survival mechanism coded in your organism.
Uncertainty is a powerful driver in behavioral response. Your body intuitively responds with resistance & hesitation to the new and unfamiliar a.k.a. change. Anything that is not the norm, or has not happened before, receives an alert trigger from the body that finds comfort in going back to old and known ways.
So if your whole life has lacked healthy food options or an active lifestyle, the minute you start changing ways, the body will activate a resistance protocol and trigger old behaviors. Thus, making it challenging to sustain new healthier habits.
Here is the problem, the survival protocol resists change - you are a creature of habit. Period! The body cannot distinguish whether the change is positive/negative or good/bad for you. You have to override the system and continue to pursue the changes until it's the 'new' norm and the body feels equipped to handle it.
When you experience setbacks during transformation is not a lack of ability on your part. It's just your body activating a survival protocol.
Now, what will happen if you treat setbacks as such and avoid self-judgment? Would you quit or embrace a more flexible & compassionate approach? It opens up new options that favor success in your transformation journey.
More than will or discipline, setbacks are part of a cycle.
The Transtheoretical Model by Prochaska & DiClemente is a model of intentional change that explains the decision-making process individuals go through when embracing and sustaining behavioral transformations.
This model presents a stage dedicated to Relapse o Setbacks. It showcases setbacks as part of the process, part of the cycle & required to achieve complete transformation.
Many factors affect & contribute to the success of your health journey. In addition, the scientific or biological aspect must be accounted for and considered. When you see the whole puzzle, you can better grasp the transformation as a process instead of an impossible mission.
Create a new setback Management Protocol
Now that you can have another explanation for setbacks, how about leveraging those experiences in your favor? A failure experience can be hard to process, but it's beneficial to do so.
What if the next time you experience setbacks, instead of dusting yourself off and moving on, you take a few minutes to evaluate the happenings? Take time to understand the emotions or the behaviors and connect them to your circumstances. How about designing a contingency plan that's not impulsive but well-thought-of and tailored to your preferences?
Bringing awareness to your mechanisms can provide an accessible solution to how you successfully manage setbacks. It's an opportunity to avoid quitting your journey. It's an opportunity to try new ways that support your growth and the achievement of your goals.
Study previous setbacks responses with compassion. Create a new mechanism that honors your goals as much as your circumstances. Take the edge & pressure of that phase in the cycle and uncover a whole new way of progressing in your health journey.
Quick Survey:
Shifts to Create Balance while Experiencing Setbacks
If you want to start rewrite your response to experiencing failure or setbacks in your health journey, try the following shifts:
If these shifts resonate with you and you want to take them a step further, reach out! It's time to explore setbacks differently. Let's jump into a Discovery Session and explore all the possibilities to achieve all the goals on your health journey.
From my journey to yours
Unlearn to learn.
When I was a perfectionist, failure was not an option. Unacceptable to say the least. The pressure I put myself through still lingers in my impulse mechanisms, and I diligently have to work on it even today. My shoulders still tense up whenever I work on a new project - luckily, I'm now aware and consciously relax them.
That doesn’t mean I don’t experience setbacks or failures. Because I do. That will not change.
What has changed is my acceptance of the phase in the cycle. I don't love to experience setbacks, but I can't change the fact that I do so. All I can control is my response to it. Instead of getting discouraged when they happen, I focus on honoring my ability to overcome them. I wrap my head around the fact that it's an opportunity for me to rewire my body's setbacks protocol and get my body used to new experiences with ease.
It has allowed me to create a different context around quitting. The act of quitting is not attached exclusively to my inability to complete a task. Quitting is now attached to a mindful act of self-love and consideration. This duality has been a game-changer that positively impacts my health journey. Setbacks are not exclusively a negative experience. I get to choose how to respond and, as consequence, how they impact my progress.
You can have that opportunity too if you want it! Do you?
Until Next One!
Stay happy, stay healthy, Stay BALANCED,
