Healthy & Unhealthy Behaviors

I tend to think of behaviors on a spectrum of healthy to unhealthy. Healthy behaviors are those that work towards a greater purpose. Unhealthy behaviors impede our progress or set us back. In between, behaviors are more neutral.

Unhealthy behaviors are often followed by a feeling of disappointment or denial, which can lead to additional unhealthy behaviors. This is the downward spiral that can be so difficult to escape. For example, if you are someone who struggles with junk food, you might feel disappointed in yourself every time you consume junk food. Perhaps you feel that your willpower is no match for the temptation and as a result you feel powerless.

Your defense may be to ignore the evidence that says what you are doing is unhealthy or focus on the evidence that what you are doing is not as bad as what some people may think. You might just accept that junk food is part of your life. You might tell yourself that life is short and convince yourself that worrying about what you eat makes little difference.

But being in denial does not lead to improvement. Improvement occurs only when we are honest with ourselves about what is healthy and unhealthy. You don’t have to wait for a wake-up call to change your thinking. We all do things that are unhealthy. Deep down, you probably know if something you are doing is unhealthy. You don’t need to be ashamed. Simply recognizing a behavior as unhealthy is the first step. Addressing the relative proportion of healthy to unhealthy behaviors comes next.

One thing you can do is to try focusing more on healthy behaviors. If you are struggling, focusing only on your weaknesses can lead to you feeling down about yourself. You can introduce more healthy behaviors to dilute the unhealthy behaviors. When you think about what you are doing right, you will feel a little better about yourself and the better you feel about yourself the more confident you will be when facing larger challenges.

So, stop keeping a tally of everything you do wrong and start tracking all that you do right. The more attention you pay to healthy behaviors, the less power the unhealthy habits will have on your life. As you start tracking your healthy behaviors, you will naturally start seeking healthy behaviors. If you take a step backwards, follow it with two steps forward. You might take a walk. Go for a run. Call someone you love and tell them something you like about them. Spend a moment connecting with your spouse or children. Eat something nutritious. Write down some things you are grateful for. All of these things are healthy behaviors that will help make you feel better about yourself.