****************************************************************************

Those of you who have been following the advice provided in this newsletter over the last four months have already taken action towards changing your life in a positive direction. Congratulations! You have moved successfully through the stages of precontemplation, contemplation, preparation and action. While the first step towards change is often difficult, maintaining positive changes over the long-term can be even more difficult. Old habits and temptations have a way of creeping up on us again and again.

Sustaining the accomplishments that you have made will require consistent effort, constantly renewing your commitment to change, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Maintaining control of one's environment by continuing to avoid the people, places and things that were initially associated with your bad habit is a baseline condition for maintaining positive change. Dedication to a new lifestyle and consistently acting in new ways are important foundations for maintaining change.

Initial success with change may lead to complacency and possibly to minimizing the importance and danger of the old, undesirable behaviors. Recurrent negative thoughts, self blame and minimizing the challenges of maintaining your commitment are common problems encountered following initial success with change. Negative thoughts may arise because of frustration with external situations or because of unanticipated circumstances such as the death of a friend or family member, poor health, or loss of a job. Any of these events may trigger ingrained habits of negative thinking related to the behavior you wanted to change initially.

While avoiding the triggers of old, negative behaviors and thinking is one of the best ways to prevent relapse, it is not always possible. Being prepared for the possibility of a lapse and re-experiencing old, negative patterns is important. Countering negative thoughts with positive thoughts you have prepared ahead of time is one technique that can be used. Working with a therapist in using desensitization techniques or hypnosis to learn how to respond to old triggers in new ways can also be quite useful.

Mindfulness meditation is another powerful technique that can be quite helpful in preventing relapse. Mindfulness practice involves learning to respond to thoughts, feelings, and external stimuli with awareness and acceptance, and giving your self the opportunity to respond mindfully instead of reacting automatically.

Spirituality can be an integral part of your program to sustain positive changes in your life. Commitment to a healthy life style includes faithfulness to your spiritual values and practices. As you continue to strengthen your spirituality you will be bolstering your commitment to change. For example, a daily prayer or meditation practice can be quite useful in maintaining focus and energy on your change goal. Participation in a spiritual fellowship puts you in touch with others who can support you in your change program and in your journey to maintain a positive way of life.

In businesses and organizations change can be just as difficult to maintain as it is for an individual. Complacency and reversion to old work habits often undermine the most well thought out plans for change. Constantly monitoring the progress of the organization, reinforcing new skills and procedures, and frequently reviewing the revised mission of the organization can be helpful in staying the course.

Unfortunately the road of sustained change is rarely smooth and is often filled with hazards. We can expect that from time to time we will hit a pothole and lapse again into an old unwanted behavior. Both individuals and organizations can learn from such lapses and fine-tune their change maintenance program. Frequent lapses may be an indication that outside help is needed from a therapist, coach or consultant. Sometimes frequent lapses may turn into a total relapse into the old pre-change behavior pattern. Any relapse should be taken as an indication that the social support, commitment, environmental controls and all other aspects of the change process must be reevaluated and strengthened or changed. It is not uncommon for people to cycle through the stages of change several times before change becomes permanent. A strong desire to change for the good and the acceptance of lapses as part of the process can sustain you on the difficult journey of change.

********************************************************************************

You can contact Dr. Kravitz at yaacov@spiritualintelligence.com.

To subscribe send an e-mail to yaacov@spiritualintelligence.com with your name, city and the word "subscribe" on the subject line.

To be removed from this list, send an e-mail to yaacov@spiritualintelligence.com with your name, city and the word "unsubscribe" on the subject line.

This Newsletter is sent to those who subscribed as well as selected friends and colleagues of the author. Your name and other information will never be shared with others.

The above material is copyrighted, but you may retransmit or distribute it to whomever you wish as long as not a single word is changed, added or deleted, including the ‘About’ and subscription information. However, you may NOT copy it to a web site. Reprint permission may be granted, upon request, to student newspapers, universities, and other non-profit educational organizations. In addition, advance written permission must be obtained for any reprinting of this material in modified or altered form.

The Service Mark, or "SM" and registered symbol ® in superscript format, are applied following "Spiritual Intelligence" and denotes it as a legally registered service and process the name of which is owned by Dr. Yaacov Jeffrey Kravitz. This term defines the services developed by Dr. Kravitz and must be applied when referring to Spiritual Intelligence ®SM. No individual or organization can legally use this term without the express written permission of Dr. Kravitz. Individuals must be trained in the Spiritual Intelligence ®SM process to say they are using it, and they must include the Service Mark whenever they use it in print.