Step 5: Resisting the Initial Urge

Despite your best efforts to identify and avoid the triggers, at some point you will undoubtedly confront the urge to regress into old ways. Smokers will crave to puff, spenders will urge to buy, overeaters plead for “just a bite,” couch potatoes will find themselves heading back to the pillows. This is the nature of change and growth.

But you can resist temptations. And so can I, usually. In fact, as I am writing this section, I am perversely encountering a high-risk temptation to my diet. Every time I walk to the secretary’s office, I am haunted by the sights and smells of post-Christmas goodies on the lobby table for everyone to sample. The fudge calls to me, “Just one won’t hurt. Try one so you can tell Donna (our secretary) it was delicious.” But I am resisting.

In the moment of intense temptation, you will understandably protest, “You don’t understand, it’s just too strong! I can’t staaaaaaand it! I neeeeeeeed it” (whining like a 5-year old). And in that moment, it does indeed feel like “I’m gonna die if I don’t give in to the urge.”

How can we resist the siren's song of temptation? Start by using the following 10 proven methods to resist the initial urge.