What’s one thing you wish you could change to live a healthier life? What could you do right now to help you achieve it? The chances are you managed to think of something pretty quickly, but probably struggled to visualise how you would get there.

As Student Nurses, we’re taught how to empower our patients to implement healthy changes that stick. We’re also taught about the possible barriers to making these changes, and how to overcome them. This fortnight, I’m going to give you a whistle stop tour of Health Behaviour Change, and hopefully give you all some ideas of how to apply what I’m being taught in school into living a healthier life. It might help you to read this post with a possible change in mind but, if there’s nothing you want to change at the moment, it’ll still give you tools for any changes you want to make in the future.

Studies have shown that to give yourself the best chance of making a change, the goals you set for yourself should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-limited (SMART). They’ve also found, probably unsurprisingly, that changes involving minimal cost and commitment are the most likely to be adopted and continued. This means that a goal of ‘I want to be fitter’ is less likely to be achieved than a goal of ‘I want to run a 5k in August’, and that aiming to achieve this by following a couch to 5K plan is more likely to get you there than deciding to have individual PT sessions three times a week. So, think of a SMART goal, or a few if you think you can commit to them, and then we can move onto the next step.

Now we’ve set our SMART goals, it’s important to scale your change. That is, decide how much on a scale of 1-10 you actually want to make the change. Hopefully your number should be hovering at around 7 or above, if it’s any lower, then consider why that is. It’s OK if you don’t really want to make the change now. Keep the idea in the back of your mind and come back to it at a later date, when you feel you’re scoring higher on this question. If you’re confident this is a change you want to make now, think about how confident you feel that it’s a change you’ll be able to implement. Again, do this on a scale of 1-10. Don’t worry if this number is lower than your first number. It’s normal to feel that there are barriers to making healthy changes, and we’ll discuss how to overcome these next.

So, you’ve worked out your SMART goal and scaled your change. Now, have a think about the possible barriers to making it happen. These can be anything from time or finances to a lack of motivation. It’s important to be aware of what’s likely to stand in your way, so you can Make a Plan that minimises these barriers ahead of time. What your personal barriers are will of course influence how and what you can do to overcome them, but think of things like budgeting for your change, for example if it involves paying for a new fitness class membership, or giving yourself some accountability, maybe by asking a friend to check in on your progress, if motivation is likely to be your downfall. Write your contingency plans down, somewhere you can easily refer back to them if you need to.

The final step is the exciting one. It’s time to implement the change! Some people like to set a special date for this, I know certain people who feel that change has to begin on a Monday, for example. There’s no reason though, if you’ve got everything in place and you’re feeling super motivated, why you can’t start right now! The sooner you make your healthy changes, the sooner you’ll feel the benefits after all.

My only other bit of advice is on relapse: This happens, and it’s ok! It’s normal to make a healthy change and feel like you’re doing great, only to have a slip, or fall out of the habit. If this happens then it’s important not to punish yourself for it. Start back at the beginning and follow all the steps above again, but with the added confidence that you’ve already made this change once, so you know you’ll be able to do it a second time. So set those SMART goals, visualise your change and plan your way to a healthier future!