Change is Like Playing Hopscotch

In the clinic, I do so much preventive care, meaning trying to help people make effective life style change to regain their health.  Understandably, I find myself saying the same sort of things over and over again.  And you know, different patients respond differently.  How about that?!

This week, I found several appropriate spots to say the following, "Lifestyle change is sort of like playing hop-scotch."  And to puzzled looks I'd clarify with, "You throw your chalk into the next square, and take a leap.  You get your balance again, pick up the chalk, and write on that square all you have learned.  Then when you are ready, you take another leap. Eventually you get to the end."

One gal said, "Yeah, and you don't ever get to go back to Start!"

Another said, "Balance is a nice word, but I don't ever really feel that.  No, not so much."

One fellow said, "So what's at the end?  The End?"



To him, I said, "Well ... er ...  yes, I guess it is."

So hanging onto your health is like a hopscotch game, and beginning to play is not an "if" but a "when?"

When will you begin a focus on changing your diet?  When will you find time to exercise? And stretch? When will you find a way to rest a bit between following passions at full tilt?

At any rate, playing hopscotch is more fun than making lifestyle changes, but healthy changes become easier, the more you do.  So, you could pick up your chalk and possibly write your life story with that penultimate chapter reading differently, editing out so much illness and medication-taking in your latter years.  Before "the End."

What would be a good next change for you?  Square One for me is "to put in the good stuff"... meaning try to get 9 vegetables plus fruits a day.  How about you?