How many of you have tried to change a behavior and have struggled to get the change to stick and become a good or healthy habit?  Maybe some of you received a diagnosis from your doctor about your blood pressure or sugar levels being too high due to your poor diet and smoking?  How many of you who have such an experience and have really tried to make the change, recommended by the doctor, and taken his or her recommendations seriously?  Because of course the changes needed make sense and you want to be around to see  your kids or grand kids grow up…right?  Then why is changing something, so critically important to your future health, so darn hard to get to stick?

Why even when we WANT to change does it seem to elude us?  Every logical part of your brain is screaming for you to follow and abide by these good nutritional choices yet we eat the hamburger and fries from McDonald’s but you think to yourself, “I didn’t super-size it…that’s a good choice?”

Today your host, Connie Whitman, speaks with Dr. Art Markman, who is going to help us understand the mechanisms of decision making, and the influences of motivation on reasoning. Dr. Markman is an author and is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas.  His new book is a must read called “Smart Change.”