Preserving Your Improvement for the Long-Term

If you've been tracking with each of the stages of change I've addressed in recent weeks, you may have felt last week that "We've finally arrived!"

Ah, but there's more beyond the "action" stage.  Personal improvement is not an event, it's a process.  And the process continues even beyond your initial successes at more effective behavior.

No one ever said that "improvement" is easy.  Rewarding?  Yes.  Easy?  Hardly!  When you least expect it, your old self jumps out in front of your conscious awareness and reacts, sometimes in ways that embarrass your newly polished persona.

You might have a tendency to castigate yourself if you didn't realize that occasional slips and lapses are a normal part of the process of change.  Be patient yet persistent.  Read about the "maintenance" stage of change in "Preserving Your Improvement for the Long Term."

Dennis