Can behavior be changed?

                Thank you for your question, reader. My short answer to your question is, “yes, absolutely!”. I think I speak for all mental health professionals when I say that if we did not believe in change, and see the evidence that change is possible, we would not be able to do the work that we do. I’ll try to answer your question by telling you how I understand how changes in behavior happen.

First, it is helpful to think about our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as being interconnected and influencing one another. This is the basis of cognitive-behavior therapy.

When we are able to affect change in one of these areas, the other areas change as a result. It is often behavior change that is the most measurable because other people in our lives can see the change in what we do. It is harder for other people to see if we are feeling better or thinking differently; they see what we do differently as a result.

                Changing behaviors or actions is a good place to start when we want to affect change because it is often the most controllable of the three. If you are sad, can you magically will yourself into feeling happy? Not likely. Can you control your thoughts to the extent that you won’t think about a purple elephant if someone tells you not to think about a purple elephant (don’t think about a purple elephant)? Nice try. Assuming that you have fully-functioning face muscles, can you change your frown into a smile when you try? Yes, you can! So, sometimes we can force ourselves to do the thing while our mind is still saying, “you really don’t want to do that” or you are feeling fearful of it.

                Let’s talk about how what we tell ourselves can influence what we do. Picture two different people that have never golfed before being invited to go by a friend. One person says to himself, “I don’t know how to golf, this is going to be awful”. The other person says, “Let’s see what I can learn about golfing today”. Can you imagine how their days might go differently? Maybe one person stays home and does not even take the opportunity to learn. How might one person feel compared to the other about not doing well on the course?

My son’s elementary school is using these connections to start to shape a child’s attitude towards learning and themselves from an early age. In his first grade class, he started learning about the “power of yet”. He was taught not to say, “I can’t do this” when faced with a challenge, but instead say, “I haven’t learned how to do this yet”. In this way, helping children shape their attitudes and beliefs is meant to have an impact on how successful they can be at school (the behaviors).

Please keep in mind that change doesn’t happen overnight and takes practice, repetition, and motivation. If you are struggling to make important changes in your life, it could help to work with a mental health professional for a time.