We practice for progress, not perfection.

Whew. It was a lot of pressure deciding on what our inaugural content post should be! It’s our first impression on the medium where a lot of us get our information from these days, so it has to be perfect. Right?!

Well, I hate to disappoint you, this post (and the others to follow) will be far from perfect. I’m sure there will be typos, grammatical and punctuation errors, information that won’t interest you, jokes that aren’t funny, debatable messaging, and many other NORMAL practices that will help us learn lessons and better ourselves as we go.

So, as I debated for hours and days, I interestingly enough found some sort of comfort in showing this vulnerability in our inaugural post. Why? Because I decided what I want you to learn from this post is that Nourishing Our Needs isn’t going to paint a picture of perfection, because it’s not and never will be.

When we are helping individuals navigate their health and wellness journeys, perfection is not a part of those journeys. Nourishing Our Needs is about what I mentioned above—practices that will help us learn lessons and better ourselves as we go.

We learn so much valuable information from trial and error, adjustments, and listening to our minds, bodies, and hearts.

So, come along with us as we navigate through our own new journey and learn with us along the way!

Stages of Behavior Change… Where are You?

We’ve mentioned a time or two that Nourishing Our Needs is based on a behavior change theory called the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) and the Stages of Change. But, we haven’t told you what that is and why we use it.. so here’s a crash course in behavior change theory. There are many behavior change theories to choose from and each have their own strengths and limitations. Theories help build the framework of strategies and interventions to effect behavior change. The TTM is one of the most widely used theories and is based on processes and principles of change across different theories of intervention—hence the Transtheoretical. This is one of my favorite theories to use as it also identifies activities that individuals use to help progress them through these stages. So, it helps health education professionals pinpoint techniques to move the public and individuals through to the termination phase ending in the new behavior! I’m trying to journal a little bit every morning. I’ve purchased the journal and will start on 7/1—so I am in the preparation phase! Share a behavior of yours and what stage you are in!