After changing the clocks and heading into the holiday season, many people get nervous about falling back into some familiar habits they’ve worked hard to avoid.  It’s easy to eat more, drink more, spend more money, play more video games, in fact, do more of any of the quick comfort behaviors that ease our tension when it’s dark and cold outside. So today I want to share a tool that is quick to do, but actually powerful to use.

Judith Beck, daughter of Aaron Beck, has continued to develop her father’s work in the area of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which focuses on the connection between our thoughts and our behaviors.  Throughout our day we come across situations that act as triggers.  These triggers can be a situation (having someone cancel a plan we had), an emotion (feeling lonely), or a time of day (after work) that make us want to eat or smoke or binge watch another tv show.  These responses over time often become automatic, and we lose our sense of control over them.  We feel helpless to them.  According to the Becks, this helplessness comes from the negative thoughts we have that become a conditioned response.  We “sabotage” ourselves with thoughts that we believe to be true, such as “I can’t change,” “I’m too weak to stop,” “I deserve this,” or “I’ll have this today and start tomorrow.”  

What Beck encourages people to do is to identify these sabotaging thoughts and challenge them.  In doing so, we create a gap between the trigger and the response and offer ourselves an opportunity to alter our behavior in ways that we feel better about.  For example, you get home and head to the refrigerator, thinking “I’ve worked hard today and I’m so hungry.” Normally you would begin eating whatever you could find in the refrigerator standing at the counter.  Then you cook dinner and by the time you eat it you feel overly full and upset with yourself that you ate too much and feel uncomfortable.  Each night you come home you tell yourself you’re not going to do this again, but then when the time comes, you end up eating, telling yourself you are “too weak to change,” you “deserve the cookie,” or “I’ll eat less later.”  All of these thoughts undermine your efforts at eating healthy and end up shattering your confidence and efforts.

One of the most effective ways, Beck’s research has shown, to challenge these sabotaging thoughts, is to remember our motivations.  When we are tired, bored, lonely, or hungry, or any time we face a trigger that we have felt powerless over, we lose sight of our motivations.  We forget why we need to stay on track with our new habit and give ourselves an excuse to do what we have always done.  Whether it’s telling yourself you can’t be successful, or that this one time is ok, the desire to engage in the behavior overshadows the motivations that lead to change.  Remembering our motivations can serve as a strong deterrent to negative sabotaging thoughts.  

So, the tool, you may be asking?  It’s as simple as a 3 X 5 card.  Beck calls them “Advantages Response Cards.” It’s as simple as writing down on the card your most powerful motivations for wanting to make the change desired.  It may include wanting to be healthier, having more self respect, decreasing your sugar levels, feeling more in control, being more available to your family, etc.  Whatever gets to the heart of the reasons you are wanting to make the change, write them down.  Then, and this is the important part, read them at least twice a day.  Tuck your card in a place you will remember to read it and choose times that will be most effective for preventing sabotage.  For example, you might put a card on the seat of your car to read when you get home from work, before you walk in your door.  Or after dinner, if you tend to have a cigarette then.  You should also read them at times when you are struggling with a trigger you did not expect or when you encounter a low point in your day.

By reading your card, your mindset tends to shift between the reasons to do the behavior (because I’m weak, I deserve it, I can’t resist) to the reasons you don’t want to do the behavior.  It reminds you that you have a choice and that actually NOT doing the behavior will feel better overall than doing the behavior.  It puts you back in touch with your rational mind that does have control and can make healthy decisions.  You may be thinking, “I don’t need to make a card, I already know my motivations to change.”  This in itself can be a sabotaging thought, because while you do know your motivation, you tend to lose sight of them when the urges strike in the heat of a moment.  The cards serve as a reminder to bring these motivating thoughts to the forefront, getting you back in touch with the bigger picture. 

A tool is just that, a tool.  It only works when you use it, and it won’t always be what you need to get the job done.  But a tool is meant to be a help in your effort and to make it a bit easier.  Advantages Response Cards are inexpensive, small and easy to carry with you, and can have a lot of power without needing to be plugged in or recharged!  But if you are like me, you may need to make several copies, as losing my tools is a habit I have yet to change.

*** Just as I finished writing this blog, I read that Aaron Beck has passed away at the age of 100. May his memory be for a blessing. Many, many years ago I worked as an undergraduate in the Beck Center for Cognitive Therapy in Philadelphia. Dr. Beck was a kind man and although I didn’t have a lot of interaction with him, he always showed interest in my education.