Another thing that the therapist and I talked about was looking at the payoffs rather than the deprivation that is commonly associated with changing habits.
For example, take my good nights rest vs. PDA/smartphone action plan.
What are the payoffs of getting a good nights rest:
1) Not feeling tired through the day (unless my BG is really high)
2) Being able to better focus on tasks and projects
3) Being better able to handle whatever challenges the day brings (diabetic or otherwise)
4) Being better able to make good choices
What are the deprivations involved with not using the PDA/smartphone at bedtime:
1) This is when I usually catch up on blogs – I’ll have to find another time to do that (easy).
2) I’ll have to glance at tomorrow’s appointments before I put it away (again, easy).
3) Nothing to keep me up when I should be sleeping…
4) Um, … , is that really all?! Wow.
See – it’s simple when looked at from that angle. Funny how perspectives can change so much about a situation. The “pros” easily outweigh the “cons”.
This is a pretty easy situation to analyze like this. I know that others will probably be much more complicated. But with almost anything, it seems that the payoffs outweigh the perceived deprivation by a great margin. Those perceived deprivations seem downright silly in many cases when compared to the payoffs…