Change One Thing

Boots (PLC, that is) has repeated its New Year 2006 campaign and is once more urging its hapless customers, at every till point, to "change one thing".

And why not, when it clearly works?

And especially if you have been diagnosed with, or suspect you have, ADHD, it makes sense to change just one thing at a time, working on it in short spurts, modifying your behaviour in just this one respect, for the magic 21 days that psychologists say we need to "practise a behaviour" to establish it as a habit. Let's even call it a month to be sure - to allow for lapses.

For all of us, small steps may make the journey longer than taking great strides, but if we keep at it steadily, forgive ourselves for relapses and keep moving, we will get there.

What may be an issue, of course, is our impatience. We want soon. Dieting represents a certain hardship. Discipline. Self-control. Deprivation, even. We'd rather get it over as quickly as possible so we can fit into those dream jeans.

We'd all rather shed the extra weight in half the time, even though aiming for half the weight loss (a modest 400g a week instead of a kilo - a pound a week, rather than two) makes the whole dieting thing less stressful, and apparently makes it far less likely that that lost weight will start piling back on after the goal is reached.

Thus ASAP promotes the cycle of dieting, regaining, dieting, regaining.

So if you're changing one thing, change it modestly, ease into it gently. And if you wander off the path, dust yourself down; no recriminations; get back on that track and keep walking.