If you decide to eat less because you would like to lose weight, can your decision take precedence over your old habit of eating too much food?
What’s been your experience?
Most people would say that changing their daily habits is in no way easy, and deciding doesn’t add up to doing it. A habit is a habit, and it’s hard to break.
Then, does what you want to do, what you intend to do not matter? Are your intentions not strong enough to override your old weight-gaining behaviors?
A psychological research study on just this issue, of whether it’s possible to shield your intentions against habit interference, showed that a person’s intentions can indeed inhibit the strength of old habits.
So take heart from that. Intentions do count. But they don’t do the whole job.
The inhibiting power of your intention can be strengthened, though. They can be strengthened by the ways you choose to implement your intention. In other words, your intention can be fully supported by the plans you make to carry out your intention: the more specific the plan the better. For example: When (this happens), I will (do that).
Implementing your intention through smart planning is one way of shoring up your intention. Another way is to practice what you plan. You can do this through visualizing or mental rehearsal. You can also practice what you plan to do by actually doing it here and there.
With planning and practice, your intention is being implemented as thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that will, in themselves, become habitual. In other words, you are making some new habits. And remember, there’s only so much room inside you. So some of these new habits of yours are going to be taking up some of the space you had reserved for your old habits.
Get the idea? It all starts with your intentions, and it doesn’t have to end there.
