What I am About: From Bad Habits to Health and Well Being

     Before and after retirement, I chose self improvement as my arena for bringing about the passage to more dignity and self worth. This has already happened in weight loss, overcoming smoking addiction, overcoming call reluctance or lack of assertiveness in being a salesman, and overcoming writer’s block. Presently I am working on achieving sobriety because, at age 75, my system can’t handle alcohol anymore, even a modest glass of wine or two.

   In each of these personal struggles I was striving for a goal that could only be reached by exercising personal self discipline.  In a word, it was about regulating my inner life. The literature about willpower and self control has been a major interest.  I was striving for goals that entailed strenuous inner struggle to accomplish.  In some instances, the factors to be controlled were bodily craves (for nicotine, alcohol, food). In others, it was fear, doubt, and various negative beliefs. In fact, the beliefs were sometimes found later to be delusions. 

     In some instances, it took me years of striving to accomplish these goals.  There was much progress followed by regression and slipping back to old habits. Over time, there was much success and failure, back and forth, over and over, trial and error; it was like a roller coaster ride.

      And out of these personal struggles I became a student of what helps and what hinders struggles for personal change: record keeping, role models, perspectives, meanings and beliefs, affirmations (didn’t work for me) gaining self trust or taking one’s own interests and inclinations seriously, avoiding avoidance or distractions where possible, watching out for substitute formations that were really escapes and defenses against fear of disapproval, having confidence, using performative expressions  (“I will no longer have second helpings”, announced to my mate), real reasons vs. nice sounding ones; accountability partners; group support,  and having strategies in place for dealing with temptation in its various guises.

        Also I became exposed to such notions as SELF DEFEATING INHIBITIONS (some of which turned out to be unconscious), or the role of unconscious factors that could delay or subvert change and successful striving. For example, the unconscious fear of abandonment that undercut initiative; or the fear of initiating contacts with strangers due to an unconscious fear of embarrassment and humiliation.  This last unconscious belief turned out to be a delusion.   These unconscious factors had to be uncovered before they could be controlled, or at least the attempt could be made; frequently, of course, these attempts were met by  failure  as’ thought’ alone was insufficient.

     In the course of these struggles I developed certain beliefs, assumptions, and therapeutic ideologies. And I got therapeutic help from two clinical psychologists who gave me all sorts of advice and encouragement about how to more effectively reach my goals.

    I used the technique of journalizing to help work through these changes, to assist in the self observations that made change possible so that I came to know what about my I had to change, control or focus on in order to change.

     In review of ‘what I’m really about’, I see that I can say about myself that I am in combat with fear and temptation, two of my most familiar inner obstacles which I have sought to control, to overcome in the process of going for worthiness goals. These are and were core factors in my strivings for personal development, from ignoble to noble, from bad habits to health and well being.

    I am the chief audience to my endeavors since mostly I have not shared my struggles with friends or relatives. Blogging has been a recent addition. And I have self published two books about my struggles, weight loss and cold call reluctance.  Now I am struggling with SOBRIETY which, to this date, I am losing.  However, alcohol is becoming more and more poisonous to my system, as I keep telling myself. But, somehow, the wish is not father to the needed change. Moderation has been achieved but not total cessation. 

   So I am really about a private struggle for self rectification to resolve the loss of self confidence and to overcome the inferiority caused by my upbringing.  Sometimes I think that I don’t have the courage of my convictions, or I don’t have the courage to go public until I have amazing results to report.  This is probably in error and this offering is in part taken as a corrective measure.

   The take away here: change is fraught with failure but oftentimes ends in success if you persist long enough.  Some tactics succeed for a time only to fall by the wayside as old habits come back in play.  And, thoughts, especially justifications and legitimations, don’t always lead to the hoped for change. Intuitions and feelings tend to be stronger and more reliable sources of positive actions.