Review of Motivate Healthy Habits

"Motivate Healthy Habits" is a self-help book focused on helping readers boost their motivation and therefore go beyond fleeting “surface” change to lasting, “deep” change. Author Rick Botelho, a physician and professor of family medicine, draws on his integrative Motivational Practice approach to get the reader pondering, questioning, and ultimately changing, your health habits.

The book begins with an introduction that reiterates the importance of behavior in health and places this book in the context of the author’s course for teaching health care providers to facilitate behavior change in their patients. The heart of the book is its deceptively simple exercises guiding the reader through the process of evaluating their current habits, increasing motivation for change, and developing change plans that work. The final section, on becoming a health coach to family and friends, includes appropriate caveats against foisting your “help” on others along with good advice for those who are looking for an alternative to nagging. Several appendices lead the reader to additional resources.

I recommend this book to health care providers who are learning motivational interviewing, the stages-of-change model, or Motivational Practice. Encountering aspects of these approaches in a self-help format can help you gain an experiential understanding of the processes at work in facilitating self-change.

Deborah H. A. Van Horn, Ph. D. - November 1, 2004