REPROGRAMMING DECADES OF ENABLED, UNHEALTHY BEHAVIORS

A change in attitude is like a change of anything else: You have to want it bad enough.

Wikpedia explains, “Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) calls each individual's perception of the world their 'map'. NLP teaches that our mind-body (neuro) and what we say (language) all interact together to form our perceptions of the world, or maps (programming). Each person's map of the world determines feelings and behavior. Therefore, impoverished - and unrealistic - maps can restrict choices and result in problems. As an approach to personal development or therapy it involves understanding that people create their own internal 'map' or world, recognizing unhelpful or destructive patterns of thinking based on impoverished maps of the world, then modifying or replacing these patterns with more useful or helpful ones. There is also an emphasis on ways to change internal representations or maps of the world in order to increase behavioral flexibility.”

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) explains, “That it’s difficult for us to be motivated by anything other than intense pain because our programming runs so deep. Generally, the pain of the present isn’t great enough or we would have changed already.”

As I dug deeper into my research on “How to Change the Way Employees Think About Their Health,” I first asked myself, “why?” Why are we as a society so plagued by the extreme burden of cost incurred by our unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and, why, if replacing (changing) those unhealthy behaviors with healthy behaviors could avoid up to “70% of the cost of healthcare (according to the AMA), “haven’t we changed them already?”

Upon reading Wikpedia’s excerpt definition of NLP and the NLP belief, “that it’s too difficult for us to be motivated by anything other than intense pain because our programming runs so deep,” these plausible answers to the above two questions occurred to me:

1.      For nearly three decades, we as an industry including employers, providers, consultants and insurance companies have created an environment of healthcare-entitlement; “programming” employees to take for granted the spiraling cost of healthcare, and;

2.      “Enabling” them to take less care of and less responsibility for their own health; having come to fully expect over three decades of programming that someone else, namely their employer, would pay for it regardless of the cost.

So it goes without saying on the issue of “changing unhealthy lifestyle behaviors” that; “The pain of the present isn’t great enough to motivate employees to change the way they think about their health or they would have changed already.”

The way then to bring about a change in attitude from apathetic to positive action regarding one’s “feelings and behavior” toward one’s own health is to bring the accumulated “intense pain of the future to the present.” If you can help employees to understand and be made aware of that “future pain” in the “present-tense,” they will have the leverage necessary to effectuate change on their own accord, or suffer the known consequences of their failure to do so.

A voluntary Employee Health Risk Management Plan, paid for by the employee complete with a Bona Fide Health & Wellness Program built on achieving (or failing to achieve) standard benchmark results that will improve health status and lower (or increase) employee financial risk may just be the long-term solution you’ve been looking for to “improve your healthcare investment ROI” – at no additional cost to the company.

For a fresh new approach and innovative, non-conforming ideas on how I can save you money providing healthcare benefits to your employees and help you control your healthcare cost in the future, write: mark.capuano@skyinsure.com, or call me at 330-492-3373. http://www.markcapuano.com / http://www.skyfi.com.