More lessons from 10,000 feet… On this flight, I am sitting near Russ who travels frequently for business. While distracting Emily from her flight anxiety, Russ told her and I about a flight he experienced during which the oxygen masks fell. He shared that all the passengers automatically turned their heads right and left like the flight attendant does during her pre-flight spiel. He and I both found it interesting how such things can be ingrained into our consciousness. I would venture that few to none of the passengers had ever had to utilize an in-flight oxygen mask prior to that incident.
Unless your flight anxiety is high, my guess is that you tune out the spiel after your first flight or two (even Emily didn’t seem to be paying much attention); I know I don’t consciously pay attention and didn’t realize how the flight attendants turn their heads. Yet, almost everyone mimicked the flight attendant automatically.
During session the other day, a client stated that one of the reasons he/she first started counseling was because if you do not do anything differently then nothing will ever change. I am always proud when a client owns such a statement and even more so in this case because I believe this client has never heard that from me, even if it is a foundational belief that I share. I am certainly not the only change professional that holds to this idea and you have probably heard variations of the same theme from several sources. I recently read about an extreme use of this idea in the book When You Are Engulfed by Flames by David Sedaris. David writes that when he wanted to quit smoking, he needed to shake up his schedule and break his routine, so he moved to Japan for a while.
Recently the question has been posed to me in various variations of ‘how do we reach the teens’? As a therapist and working closely with INShape Indiana on health promotions, I understand that you cannot work harder for someone than they work for themselves, or you cannot care about their growth more than they do. Doing so would be a fast track to burnout and poor client relationships, which helps no one. I have taken to regularly texting and chatting with a few of my teen cousins to try to make sure I understand their culture and what is motivating to them. (We didn’t have texting when I was a teen!) If we find it difficult to motivate real life change in adults who generally have a wider perspective on the real costs and benefits, how do we reach teenagers and help them develop healthy habits early?
One of my top ten tips for parenting includes the reminder that the idea ‘do what I say, not what I do’ never works. I encourage parents to consider the characteristics, habits, and values they want their child to have as an adult and to allow that to help them shape their parenting. Once we pass a certain age, most of us realize that we are becoming more and more like our parents (for better or for worse). Do you want your children to be like you when they are your age? What else do you want for your children?
Whether your children are old enough to start joining you in your fitness routine or you even have children yet, now is the perfect time to start developing the habits in yourself that you want your children to adopt. Your child is unlikely to want to join you in activities that you do not enjoy. Your child, who sees you as a role model, is more likely to do the things you do. I rode in bike races as a child because that was what my father did.
Solution-focused therapy encourages forward progression in several ways, one of which is to look for past successes (and exceptions to the problem) and build off of those. In goal setting and achievement I encourage my clients to consider the smallest change they can make immediately, as well as the very first, smallest sign of progress they will notice. We are most likely to achieve and maintain large goals in small steps, undertaking one at a time, rather than trying to create an entirely new life or way of being over night.
In general people do not pay enough attention to how successful and powerful they actually are already. Preparing a healthy lunch rather than stopping at Taco Bell just one day is a major change for that day. A smaller change would be to go to the same eating establishment, but order lighter fare instead of the usual.
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