Breaking the Pattern: The 5 Principles You Need to Remodel Your Life, by Platkin CS. Maryland: Red Mill Press; 2002. 271 pp.
Breaking the Pattern: The 5 Principles You Need to Remodel Your Life is designed as a book for readers to "learn to capitalize on their positive patterns" [horizontal ellipsis] and to make major changes in their lives. The guidance in this book can affect both personal and professional lives by following a simple, step-by-step approach. It is a helpful book to read at the beginning of a new year or at a new juncture in one's career. Visualization and goal-planning techniques can be applied to weight loss, behavior modification, and other counseling program. Several experts praised it a valuable tool for long-term, weight loss-related behavior change.
The book has 8 chapters divided into 5 sections: 2 chapters each under Patterns, Goals, and Achievement, and 1 chapter each under Failure and Responsibility. The premise is to recognize one's own patterns of behavior and take responsibility to change negative behaviors to positive ones.
Coping with and taking on failure uses examples from American businesses to convince readers that failure, not ambition, talent, or connections, is essential to making personal decisions that impact one's future. Once patterns of behavior are recognized, they can be broken down, analyzed, and revised, and then positive behaviors can be reinforced and expanded.
To gain the most from the book, the reader should complete the targeted exercises that begin with writing down your 10 greatest fears (Exercise 1), to clarifying specific goals, and, finally, finding ways to achieve them. SMART, an acronym, refers to how to ensure goals by determining what is Specific, Motivating, Achievable, Rewarding, and Tactical (having tactics, strategy, and disciplines). Visualization of successful goal achievement is discussed at length as an important step in early goal establishment and the setting of new or revised goals. Achievement is the last section that deals extensively with writing down primary and secondary goals, examining personal values, and developing tactics and strategies. The achievement section brings in relevant theories (Bandura's self-efficacy model) and ideas from other popular books (paradigm shifting) to counteract negative thoughts and to accomplish behavioral change.
The book would be worthwhile for individuals who want to alter behaviors, particularly those related to lifestyle modification and fitness. Readers must realize there should be a true commitment to its 5 principles and sufficient time for completing the exercises thoroughly. However, Red Mill Press has also been promoting it for colleges and universities that train dietetics and fitness students. It is written as a readable, motivating text that can help students who will, as practitioners, counsel individuals about changing behavior in terms of exercise, diet, and nutrition.
The book is easy to use and can be a reference when reinforcement is necessary for an individual who has trouble with goal achievement. For the counselor in nutrition and health, it is also a good reference for working with clients and helping them apply its basic principles. Each chapter contains many examples of how people have been successful in altering their lives from the famous to not-so-famous. Several examples at the end of the book focus on reemerging negative behaviors and creating new opportunities for motivation. Stability and balance are also explored although the author acknowledges the subject on balance could be an entire book. Overall, the book could be useful to new and experienced practitioners, especially those who want to expand the techniques they use to help clients modify their diets and their lifestyles.