Change best accomplished one small step at a time

Editor’s note: Beginning this week, The Acadia Hospital will offer a monthly column, “Because Your Mental Health Matters,” with Dr. David Prescott.

New Year resolutions. I’ve never really been a person who makes New Year resolutions, although I’m not quite sure why. I’m pretty happy with my life, but there are lots of ways I could improve.

Not making resolutions probably has something to do with being afraid that I won’t meet my goal. Or maybe making a resolution shifts the responsibility for the future away from things beyond my control to things within my control.

The issue of whether you view your life as being largely under your control or largely controlled by others is important to your mental health. Shifting your focus toward things that you can control usually makes you feel less depressed and anxious.

Turning this the other way, psychological research suggests that you can actually make people depressed by putting them in situations where no matter what they do, they cannot influence the outcome. Once you become preoccupied with things you cannot change, you mood starts to go downhill.

Let’s suppose your New Year’s resolution is to improve your health, which is one of the most common types of resolutions. Or more often, you pick some part of your health – “I’ll lose weight,” “I’ll stop having junk food in the house,” “I’ll go for a walk three times a week,” “I’ll be a size 12 by spring.”

Stop and look at the big picture. What part of this do you have the most control over? Well, if you don’t do the grocery shopping, trying to change the amount of junk food around the house would mean nagging someone else to change, which probably won’t work. How about your weight? Maybe that will change, but there is no guarantee.

What about going for a walk? If you set a time and pick a day, there probably isn’t anyone else who can take control of that away from you. That would be a good place to start. At least that one is up to you.

One key to improving emotional health is to focus on goals where we have a great deal of influence over the outcome. Finding one small thing that you can change, and really doing it, makes you feel better than focusing on the top of the mountain and feeling like you will never get there.

A colleague of mine used to start counseling groups with this question: “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer: One bite at a time.

Try thinking about what you would like to have happen in your life in 2007. OK, now be specific – what is the first step?

Psychologist Dr. David Prescott is the director of psychology services and clinical research at The Acadia Hospital. He writes a monthly column as part of Acadia’s Because Your Mental Health Matters Campaign.