ProtectionOct 30 2014

What’s your catalyst for change?

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In 2007 Steve Way was a 33 year old, 20 a day smoker, weighing over 16 stone. This year he represented his country in the marathon at the Commonwealth Games, setting a new personal best time of just over 2 hours, 16 minutes.

The catalyst for this dramatic change in Steve’s life, he says, was when his smoker’s cough began waking him in the night. He set himself a goal of losing weight and cutting out the fags and registered for the London Marathon so that he had a goal to work towards.

Obviously Steve discovered a natural talent for running which meant his aims quickly moved from simply improving his health, to running competitively but just like the rest of us, the hardest part was that first step (pardon the pun) of committing to change.

We’re coming to the end of what has been for many people “Stoptober”, a social media movement which encourages participants to go alcohol free for the month of October. For most of those involved it will not have been a total success, with occasional slips from the wagon for an office leaving do, birthday celebration or just a tough Thursday...

For others, abstinence will have been total but the important thing is that almost everyone will have made a positive difference to their health and, perhaps, made a permanent change to their lifestyle as a result of finding that going sober (or soberish) isn’t so bad.

Of course everyone is different and will have different parts of their lives which they’d like to improve; bad diet, smoking and booze are very common vices, but for other people it might be a change to their exercise regime or a rebalancing of their mental health which is important.

Our individual motivations will be different too, which is why our Vitality healthy living programme has such a wide range of partners, offering rewards from cinema tickets to discounted trainers and National Trust membership to discounts at Virgin Active gyms; there’s something to inspire the change in all of our policyholders.

It doesn’t matter whether their journey takes them to record breaking marathon times or just to cutting down on Marathon bars (yes I know they’re called Snickers but I was pleased with that pun), making the decision to improve their health may be the most important one they ever make.

For more on Vitality, visit pruprotect.co.uk/vitality.

Justin Taurog is Marketing and Distribution Director at PruProtect