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Changing health-related behaviors is a difficult challenge. Incorporate the tools below into your Wellness initiatives to assist members in successfully changing health behaviors.

Tool #1: Set effective goals

• Focus on areas that can impact the overall goal.

• For example, if the overall goal is to lose weight, the most productive areas to focus on are the dietary and activity changes that will lead to long-term weight loss.

• For example, stress management and improving self-esteem may also impact weight loss; however, improving relationships, while a worthwhile topic, will not necessarily impact weight loss.

• Make the goals specific, attainable, and forgiving. For example:

• “Exercise more” is too general.

• “Walk five miles everyday” is specific, but may not be attainable.

• “Walk 30 minutes everyday” is specific and more attainable, but is not very flexible.

• “Walk 30 minutes, five days a week” is specific, attainable, and forgiving.

• Use a series of short-term goals to achieve the ultimate goal.

• Short-term goals break big challenges into more easily attained pieces.

• Smaller steps also provide Corporate Health Promotion Program members with encouragement and success. These small successes are essential for maintaining motivation towards a long-term goal.

Tool #2: Increase self-awareness

• Self-monitoring is useful for tracking behavioral and environmental cues that trigger a particular behavior.

• Keeping track of behavior status is also useful for times when progress towards a goal is difficult to measure, or when an individual is in a maintenance stage.

Tool #3: Offer rewards and motivation

• Encourage members to reward themselves for achieving small successes on the way to their ultimate goal.

• Remember that rewards don’t always have to be “things.” Words of encouragement and praise can provide powerful motivation when spoken by a teacher, instructor, parent, friend, etc.

Tool #4: Respond effectively to set-backs

• behavior change is conceptually a continuum. However, movement along that continuum is not just in one direction. Staff members can move backwards or forwards or sometimes just stay put. Communicate to members that set-backs, lapses and even staying the same (i.e., maintenance) are common for individuals trying to change behavior.

• Stress is often a factor in lapses and relapses. Offer a variety of stress management resources to help members better handle the stress which could trigger a set-back.

• Brain storm to create a list of potential (and probable) barriers to participant behavior change. Then formulate strategies to meet each of those challenges.

• Improved time management and decision-making skills can be effective ways to overcome behavior change relapses.

• Offer members with information regarding the behavior change process so that they will be better prepared for the challenges they will face. A brief overview of the Stages of Change may be helpful.