Leading A Healthy Life Is Not (only) A Matter Of Intention

We all want to lead a healthy life and we are aware of how harmful a sedentary lifestyle, processed foods, alcohol or tobacco is. What’s more, every New Year and every Monday we find ourselves with the intention of making a change in habits. However, these good resolutions soon end up fading.

What is happening? Why do we sabotage ourselves in such a crucial and delicate matter as our health? The reality is that intention is not enough. Between intention and action there are a series of elements that we have to take into account if we really want to transform our life.

What factors prevent us from leading a healthy life?

Take the case of a person who leads an excessively sedentary life. The health behavior to adopt in this case could be “exercise five times a week.” But for the transition to occur, several things have to happen.

Risk perception

In the first place, for a change in habits to occur, the person must be aware that their behavior carries a significant risk. In this case, you should know that a sedentary lifestyle, for example, increases the chances of developing cardiovascular disease.

In addition, you must give significant weight to this risk to act as motivation. That is, it must seem like a compelling reason to change your habits.

However, this is not enough, since the perception of vulnerability also plays a crucial role here . That is, the degree to which the person perceives himself as vulnerable to developing said ailment.

Anyone with a family history of heart attack is likely to be more prone to repeat the condition. On the contrary, the person who feels omnipotent and thinks “this will not happen to me” will hardly be motivated to change.

Positive outcome expectations

It is also relevant to what degree the person believes that a specific behavior would reduce said risk. If you think that maintaining a healthy diet is important to avoid cardiovascular problems, you will not find the motivation to exercise five times a week.

Perceived self-efficacy

In addition, it is essential that the individual has sufficient confidence in their own abilities. That is to say, that you feel capable of carrying out said health behavior. If the challenge is perceived as difficult and your self-confidence is undermined, you may not even attempt it.

It will be important to modify beliefs and reinforce self-efficacy before tackling the change in habits. It is necessary for the subject to think of himself as capable, to anticipate success and positive results. If you see yourself as lazy or lazy, if you believe in advance that you are not made of the necessary dough, the change of habits will not take place.

Maintaining a healthy life

However, it is not enough that the individual perceives himself capable of initiating actions, he must also trust his ability to maintain them, to be persistent.

Adopting the new health behavior will be difficult, temptations and barriers will arise, and it is necessary to know that oneself will be able to cope successfully.

Those with high maintenance self-efficacy know that they will be able to persevere, try harder, and employ the best strategies to continue the challenge. They are the kind of people who, once started, continue to the end.

If, on the other hand, you see yourself as someone fickle, unpredictable or with a tendency to give up, it is likely that you will not initiate the change or leave it prematurely.

Recovery from relapses

Finally, it is important to check how we deal with the failures or falls that we are likely to experience in the path of change. People who perceive themselves to be self-effective in recovering from relapses attribute “the transgression” to external and specific situations, so they try to control these variables and continue on their way.

On the contrary, those who attribute these falls to their own personality are likely to give up and begin to punish themselves for their failure. In this way they settle into guilt and do not return to the point where they were before “failing.”

In short, to lead a healthy life we ​​have to be very aware of our beliefs. If these are not adequate, they can sabotage our entire process. Let’s work with our mind to make it our best ally.