Welcome to Exan's Wellness and Life Skills Program

The Anatomy of Change

In 2004, some of the world's most brilliant minds came together in New York City to seek solutions to the world's biggest problems. Health care was at the top of the list. They discussed why, even when people were faced with life-threatening illnesses, they would not change their lifestyle. Several scientific studies were reviewed.

One shocking study, which was described by the Dean of the medical school at Johns Hopkins University, looked at patients whose arteries were so severely clogged that even walking felt painful. Although doctors warned the patients their lives would be in danger if they didn't make the necessary lifestyle changes, 90 percent were unable to change.

This, along with similar studies, suggested that fear alone was not a powerful enough factor to motivate people to change. A different study was cited by the famed cardiologist Dr. Dean Ornish. Medical researchers recruited a group of 194 candidates for surgery to clear severely clogged arteries. They helped them quit smoking, improve their diet, and start exercising. Twice a week, the participants also attended meetings to discuss their goals and lifestyle changes. After three years, 77 per cent had made permanent lifestyle changes and no longer faced significant health threats, even though the program itself had ended after a year.

Why was there such a big discrepancy between the first and the second groups of patients? The difference lay in what the experts identified as the change agent: people change people.

The three keys to this agent were:

  1. Relate: You form a new emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope. Through this relationship, you believe that you can change and become inspired by other people in your state of hopelessness to regain hope. If you're trying to make an important lifestyle change, "buddy" up with someone, seek support, and/or join a cell group. For more information on how to do this, go to the menu "Health Support".
  2. Repeat: The new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master new habits and skills that you'll need. It takes a lot of repetition over time before new patterns of behavior become automatic. Eventually, however, you will act the new way without even thinking about it. Use the "Health Tracker" tool to help you increase your awareness, measure and share your progress, and keep yourself accountable to your goals.
  3. Reframe: The new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about situations and your life. Ultimately, you look at the world in a way that would have been so foreign to you before you changed. Start writing in your confidential journal to help you develop and crystallize this new way of thinking.