Continued from How to Change a Behavior: Part I

- Make contingency plans for any potential conflicts that might interfere, for example, exercising in the morning before work if you can't avoid a midday meeting.

- Set a date for when you would like to achieve your goal.  Establish a comfortable pace... baby steps!  It may take you only a few days to make the change, or it may take weeks or months.

- When you reach the goal date, evaluate your success.  If you didn't reach your goal, what got in the way?  Would one of your alternative strategies work better?

- Think about what you need to do to make this new behavior a permanent one.  If you start letting work responsibilities erode your lunch hour, you'll be back to your old habit of snacking all day.

- When ready, select another unhealthy behavior and restart the process.  Use the insight you gained from the previous change to help you be successful. 

In Part III, we'll take a look at some general strategies that you may find helpful as you go about changing unhealthy behaviors.