If you realize that you need to start living healthier, something will have to change. Usually, these kinds of lifestyle changes are back on many people's list of resolutions to realize in the coming year. But why wait until after New Year's?
When people desire a healthier lifestyle, the emphasis is often placed on satisfying what we call biological basic needs. These often involve: exercising more, sleeping better, and adopting a healthier diet involving eating less. In many cases, this is a good start, but it does not apply to everyone. For those individuals, it is better to first focus on satisfying their psychological basic needs., also known as the ABC of happiness, namely;
Autonomy
The experience of voluntariness and willingness. When you satisfy this need, you experience a sense of integrity and stand behind your behavior, thoughts, and feelings. When this need is frustrated, you experience pressure or resistance and feel as though you are being pushed in an unwanted direction.
Involvement
The experience of warmth, connection, and support. When you satisfy this need, you feel connected to and understood by others. When this need is frustrated, you experience a sense of exclusion and loneliness. You want to avoid the latter at all times!
Competence
What are your strong qualities, And what are you good at? The experience of effectiveness and mastery. When you satisfy this need, you feel capable of engaging in an activity and see opportunities to put your knowledge and skills into practice and develop them further. Note! When a need frustrates you, you experience negativity, a sense of incompetence, and helplessness. Adjust the need, and if that doesn't work, it is not a competence.
Satisfying your basic needs makes change and maintaining a healthy(er) lifestyle easier. This makes you more resilient, stronger, and more adaptable, which makes you better able to withstand setbacks, setbacks, and pitfalls.
Basic needs met or not?
Satisfying your basic needs can be done in various ways, but first you must ask yourself what your status of satisfaction is. You can figure this out together with a personal coach through in-depth conversations and formal questionnaires. However, there is also a shortcut you can take yourself, which might already give you some more insight.
- Autonomy: Do you do enough activities that you find fun and interesting?
- Involvement and social connectednessDo you have meaningful relationships?
- Competence: Do you experience mastery by doing activities you are good at?
What can you pay more attention to regarding these points?
- More autonomy: do more activities weekly that you find fun and interesting.
- Greater engagement and connection: ensure that you give attention to people you feel connected to every week by seeing them and then actively listening to what is on their minds to understand them better.
- More competence: engage in more activities you are good at and experience mastery in, or in which you feel the urge to get better and can lose track of time. These are often your passions and likely overlap with the points of your autonomous activities.
When you get started, begin with small steps if it is difficult to apply this in your daily life. Five minutes a day can already be a great starting point. However, for it to succeed, it is important that you make time to put energy into it consistently.
CONCLUSION
Changing and maintaining desired behavior and achieving a healthy(er) lifestyle (Predominantly biological basic needs) become easier when your psychological basic needs are also met, because you are then more resilient and robust.
We hope you can get started with the above on your own again. If you think you could still use some help, request a coaching session below.
English 
Dutch