Turning Negatives Into Positives

February 21, 2012

  by Dean Witherspoon     

Be honest about it, behavior change is tough.

If you’re like some health promoters you may have backed off long-term classroom-based programming or other services that require considerable commitment by the participant. Time constraints and anxiety over constant changes in the workplace have made us hesitant to ask much from participants. The results are health promotion services in bits and pieces — they’re easy to swallow but don’t stick to your ribs. You may create some awareness, but behavior change is modest at best.

Avoiding the negative aspects of using your services, whether it’s time, money, or hard work, is a mistake for 2 reasons. First, it’s misleading — you’re trying to convince people that improving their health or changing their behavior is easy. In most cases, it’s not. It may be simple, and straightforward, but getting people to change habits ingrained over 20 or more years is tough. Second, people are smarter than that. They’ll see right through your “quick and easy” message and you’ll lose credibility.

If you really want people to change behavior for good you need to be candid about what it’s going to take. But that doesn’t mean you become the health promotion ogre, terrorizing your clientele with continuous visions of hard labor. You can convey the truth about the commitment in a hopeful, positive, and rewarding way. Some ideas for turning negatives into positives:

• Time. Put it in perspective. You’ll need to commit an hour a day for the next 6 weeks. But if you consider you can be free from (smoking, overeating, etc.) for the rest of your life, it may be the best 60-minute daily commitment you’ll ever make.
• Money. Highlight the investment angle. You invest $600 a year on cable TV and your return is another 5 pounds from viewing too much The Voice. For $9 our new Walk This Weigh walking and weight management program can help you take it off and keep it off for good!
• Effort. Emphasize the reward. Quitting smoking isn’t easy — not even with our program. But we’ve helped dozens of people kick the habit for good and they’re healthy, happy, smoke-free proof we can help you stop smoking and start breathing easier again.

If you’re not asking your clients to make serious investments in their own good health it may be time to rethink your strategy. Backpedaling into programs and services that are safe and don’t ask much of participants is not only unproductive… it may hurt your career. Even if you get a lot of people to read your e-newsletter or visit your health portal, if it’s not helping them improve their health or enhance their performance, you’re not helping the organization. A single, powerful story of how you turned someone’s life around with a program that required serious commitment will carry you a lot longer than trimming another 5% from your budget this year.