Health care is focusing a lot more on preventing sickness instead of just treating it. We don’t have control over everything but there are some things we know can increase the odds of our staying healthy. You probably know a lot about what you should do but actually doing it is another matter. We call this the Intent-Behaviour gap… what we want to do and what we do.
It helps to have the combo of a trigger, desire, and being able to perform the skill. Also, it really helps to have something called self-efficacy (your belief that you can do it).
Bad news first: There’s no silver-bullet.
The good news: Evidence supports some pretty manageable things you can do to change your habits. Our advice is to focus on small changes to your weekly habits and to create situations that make it more likely you’ll make the right decision. It’ll take some nudging, tweaking and re-framing but it’s not about perfection. So be optimistic (P.S. that helps too!) and seek consistency not perfection (the 80-20 rule).
