you can change

home

search

immediate relief

bite size tastes

bonus chapters

how to order

contact us

 

STANLEY SCHACHTER WAS PUZZLED. A researcher at Columbia University, Schachter was well versed on the studies of weight-loss and smoking-cessation programs. According to the research, only 10 to 30 percent of the people who participate in those programs are still slender or nonsmoking one year later. Ten to 30 percent. That ain't much.

These studies prompted some researchers and therapists to assert it’s nearly impossible to stop smoking or control one’s weight permanently.

What puzzled Schachter was that most of the people he knew who wanted to lose weight or quit smoking had somehow been able to do it successfully. He conducted some interviews of his colleagues and friends, and it confirmed his hunch: Those who had tried had succeeded.

He has now spent over twenty years doing research on this, and he has concluded that the key to success in changing long-standing habits is practice. According to his research, people who have successfully quit smoking have tried and failed a number of times before they finally succeeded. The same was true about losing weight. Apparently you have to learn how to keep the change, and after you learn how, it begins to become a new part of yourself that eventually requires very little active effort to maintain.

That’s why the studies of weight-loss programs and stop-smoking studies look so bleak: Each is a study of only a single attempt. Schachter found that the more times you go through one of these programs, the more likely the change will be permanent.

So if you have tried to change and failed, try again. And keep trying. You can change...and you can learn how to keep the change. All you need is practice.

 

Keep persisting until the change you want
happens.

Print

how to use your mind to help you persist

Author: Adam Khan
author of the books, Principles For Personal Growth and Self-Help Stuff That Works

and creator of the blogs, CrushPessimism.com, and MoodRaiser.com
YouMe Works is a self-help website, giving you tools and ideas to help you feel good more often and become more effective with your actions. Below are a few links to other areas of the site.
Articles and Interviews
Learn about sustaining motivation, improving relationships, relieving depression, improving your health, reducing anxiety, becoming more optimistic, enjoying a better mood more often, earning more money, expanding your creativity, making better decisions, resolving conflicts, and much more.

Self-Help Menu
Want to learn to enjoy your relationships with people more? Do better at work? Feel good more often? Have a better attitude? Use the self-help menu.

Facebook and Twitter
We post on Facebook and Twitter a few times a week, focusing on helping you feel good more often.

Search For Anything On YMW
Type in any topic and find all the material on YouMe Works on that topic. You can also browse topics on this page.

Subscribe to Moodraiser
Get articles delivered to your email inbox free. Learn simple methods for lifting your general feeling of well-being right away, and improving your mood over time.

 

Google
 

Explore This Site | Immediate Relief | Bite Size | Home | Contact
Copyright © 2001-2099 -
YouMe Works Publications - All rights reserved.