Making changes to your behaviour, attitudes, beliefs, patterns of living, mood states, personality, thinking, perception of yourself and perceptions of others all require you to go through a process.

Changing yourself starts with the realisation that making a change is important. What could prompt you to think of making that needed change; the one that you wish you had made before? It is usually an increase in discomfort with yourself as you are now and as you have been. In other words, you experience a discrepancy between your current status and a desired goal for yourself. You somehow have come to this realisation and as a result, you have begun to monitor yourself more closely.

So this is how it starts: you feel uncomfortable with something about yourself, which puts you in the position of having to decide, “Do I or don’t I want to make this change?”. You want it, but you still have to decide to do it. Then there is the “Can I make this change?". The “Can I” is usually is helps you decide to do it. The “Can I” is such an important issue to resolve. It is tied up with your belief in yourself that you can master enough of the difficulties associated with making this change. This includes being convinced to some extent in this early going that you can maintain the change once you make it.

For the most part, you will probably find it hard to change what has been consistently hard for you to change. A weight problem is certainly a perennial example of this self-evident truth. But you can get help. You must realise that people get help for making hard personal changes all the time. They work with a counsellor or therapist especially when what they can’t change is affecting their quality of life. They turn to self-help groups, organisations, books and videos. Sound psychological principles can be applied to many different areas where personal change is desired (including weight issues):

• To break bad habits
• Gain control of behaviour
• Apply yourself
• Relieve anxiety
• Stabilise mood
• Rework personality
• Alter beliefs
• Develop a new lifestyle
• Adhere to important routines

If you decide to seek help to solve your weight issue, remember that an important principle common to all psychological interventions is, to make it easier for you to develop, or find in yourself the resourcefulness to make the change you need to make.