How can we get ourselves to make real, positive change – the kind that leads to sustained, meaningful outcomes that leave ourselves and this world a better place?
This is the question that I have been seeking answers to for many years now.
It began when I decided to devote myself to taking on the challenge that is learning to make healthier decisions – taking this challenge on in my own life and thinking through how I can teach others to do the same.
What ended up happening?
Well, as it turns out, the ideas were pretty simple. Even though there is an absurd amount of information out there with all sorts of different ideas regarding what is “healthy,” when I did the hard work that was sifting through all the data to determine what was valid and what was a load of b.s. – well, it turns out that there are some fundamental practices that almost anyone would significantly benefit from taking on.
Moreover, if any individual were to take on these simple practices, then the chances are good that a significant number of their health problems would be resolved (or, at least, seriously mitigated).
Even better, it turns out most of us already know that these practices would benefit our health. These answers are not secrets – they are well-established pieces of information that have been around for ages.
The question is, why do so few actually embrace these simple practices? Why are so few individuals regularly engaging in these healthy behaviors and instead consistently engage in eating habits, exercise patterns, and other lifestyle behaviors that drive forward the progression of poor health and disease?
That was my question then. It shifted away from “What are healthy decisions for the human population?” and became more focused on this: How do we actually get ourselves to take action aligned with what we know to be the right course of action?
That became my new question, and it consumed me within the health coaching paradigm.
Then, before I knew it, it had expanded. Because, as it turns out, if you can answer this question for yourself, you have the power to take on any big challenge that you want, whether it’s improving the health of your own body, improving the health of this planet, re-humanizing the way we all see one another, and more.
This is now the question I pose to you. As we face any big challenge, how to we get ourselves to take action aligned with our desired outcome?
Willpower.
That’s the simple answer, right?
That’s what we’re told over and over and over again.
Through a force of will, we can do anything. The human mind is powerful. You just need to be capable of engaging it in the right way.
If you can muster up the willpower, you can get yourself to avoid all those unhealthy foods, get yourself into the gym, and take on that new mindfulness practice. If you can muster up the willpower you can also take on these new sustainable practices and be able to…
See a problem with all that?
I do, and that’s why I’m here to tell a different story.
It turns out that the question of getting ourselves to take action goes much deeper than we tend to think. For starters, this question led to a series of others:
- How can we get ourselves to make real, positive change, when we are facing so many different challenges?
- How do we get ourselves to take consistent action when there is a whole host of options that constantly tug at our strings?
- How do we get ourselves to take action when we can’t find a path through the entirety of the challenge from where we stand today?
We’re told that we can do anything if we set our minds to it, but when there is so much to do and the challenges are so big and scary, how can we possibly get done what needs to get done to make ourselves and this world a better place?
The answer is not willpower. The answer is not to just try harder. Or, my favorite, the answer is not to “just do it.”
Rather, we need a strategy here – one that is going to allow us to navigate the large number of complex challenges that face us in this life.
With that strategy, what we need to do is step outside of the mindset that is trying harder. Maybe, we could even go so far as to begin at the other end of the spectrum.
Pause.
That’s where we begin.
When we have a serious task that we need to take on. When there is a lot of work to be done. We begin with a pause.
Pause. And breathe.
You can try it now if you’d like. It’s quite simple.
Put down your phone or look away from your computer. Take a moment to tune in with your body.
And. Just. Breathe.
Feel the breath come in through your nose. Feel your rib cage expand.
Feel the breath exit out through your mouth. Breathe it all the way out… all the way until you feel that gentle contraction in your core.
Then, inhale again. Repeat as long as you’d like.
The human body is a remarkable biological machine. If you consider the result of millions of years of evolutionary pressures tinkering away at our genome, eventually creating the remarkable beings that we are today….
Just, wow.
Unfortunately, we don’t often think about the amazing biological beings that we are. Instead, we live out our modern lifestyles failing to regularly engage with our bodies – except, that is, for just one piece of the entire design: our minds.
The human mind, as a piece of the human body, is also remarkable. It’s so remarkable, in fact, that once upon a time I believed I was going to devote my entire career to understanding it. Neuroscience and psychology pulled at me, taking me on a long journey to understanding the complex networks of neurons, glial cells, cerebral fluid, and the other components that work together to create a conscious mind that spans far beyond anything else in our known universe.
I never made a career as a neuroscientist, but I did devote a considerable amount of time to understanding how the brain functions. It’s not that the brain didn’t hold my interest – those strings still pull at me, calling me back to the research, begging more time to spend exploring the depths.
What did send me on an altered course was this: the brain, as remarkable as it is, is one piece of an entire human body. And the brain, as complex and mysterious as it may be, is a piece of a network of even greater complexity, and the challenge that is understanding the many intricacies of this entire network – that is where I found my true home.
How can we get ourselves to make real, positive change – the kind that leads to sustained, meaningful outcomes that leave ourselves and this world a better place?
One way to create change is to use our remarkable conscious human minds – a force of will – to power our way through whatever challenge we want to take on.
This can work, to an extent. But then something happens.
Our human bodies – well, after a while, those speak up.
“Hey, remember me? The vessel that is you? I’m here, and I’m not doing so well. So it’s time to stop what you’re doing and focus on me now.”
The human body speaks up in any number of ways.
Sometimes, it’s with a pain. Fortunately, we have medication for that.
Sometimes, it’s with fatigue. Fortunately, we have stimulants for that.
Sometimes, it’s with depression. We have SSRIs for that.
But, what happens, when these clinical interventions stop working? Or, what happens if they never really addressed the problem in the first place.
Well, then we’re left with an option:
- We continue to push through. After all, through power of will, we can do anything, right?
- We can continue to seek other options through modern medicine. Humans are remarkable. We can develop a treatment for this, right?
- Or, we can throw in the towel. Too many years of too much pushing. The body is broken. It’s time to call it a day.
What if we tried something different? What if we decided to stop willing our way through it all. What if we stopped forcing the outcomes we wanted on the timelines we demand and just…
Pause
And breathe.
It may sound counter intuitive, but when it comes to taking on the many complex challenges of this life, I’ve found that these tasks cannot be completed by forcing my way through it all.
Through power of will, I can do so much. At the end of a long day when I’m tired, when I don’t want to work anymore, I can muster up the energy to keep pushing through. I’ve done this – for years. Routinely pushing. Persevering.
And then, the body begins to speak. Loudly.
What if, instead of waiting until the body was forced to holler at us – what if, instead, we tuned in earlier on?
Even better, what if we tuned in regularly? As in, every single day.
Even better – what if we made tuning in a regular process? What if we lived life listening into what our bodies had to tell us?
If we did that, we would certainly avoid many (if not most) of those debilitating symptoms that arise when we live life ignoring the needs of our bodies.
And, could it be, that if we regularly engaged in a conversation with our bodies, could we find an enhanced power to take on the many serious challenges that our world currently faces?
As I write this, our world is in turmoil.
It turns out that this turmoil isn’t new. It’s just that we’ve had the privilege of ignoring these issues for far too long, and now we can’t ignore them any longer without us all going down in the process.
This, to me, begs a lot of questions. I’ll pose two today:
For one, why did we have to wait for things to get this bad for us to pay attention? People have been dying all along. People have had their lives and livelihoods stripped away all along.
And, all along, our planet as been wasting away as we strip its resources and pollute back into it.
How have we been able to ignore it all along?
Why has it taken these issues threatening our very own lives and livelihoods to feel the need to step up and do something?
For another, how is it that so many still choose to ignore the signs, even when they are so glaringly obvious?
Could it be, that we have gotten caught up in our own human minds, that we’ve lost our ability to tune into the collective struggles of this world?
And, could it be that, along the way, we got so lost in our own minds that we’ve lost our ability to tune into our own internal struggles?
And, if that were the case, would an answer to addressing all of our biggest challenges begin, simply, with stepping out of our heads and back into our bodies?
I think so.
And, even better, I know so – because I feel it, deeply. Not simply as a flicker of thought across one mere human mind.
But rather, because I’ve done the very thing that I’m here to teach you today.
Let’s take a look at it.
How can we get ourselves to make real, positive change – the kind that leads to sustained, meaningful outcomes that leave ourselves and this world a better place?
It begins, simply, with a pause. The pause creates space. It allows us to step out of our heads. It allows us to tune in elsewhere:
- into our bodies – to those signals that the body has been trying to tell us for years.
- towards other human beings – we all have important stories to tell.
So, if you want to join me in making real, positive change, here’s what you can do:
- Pause
- Tune in
We begin by pausing to create space. From this space, we are able to tune into the world around us.
That world has a lot to tell us. That world will tell us all we need to know as we move forward.
Are you willing to listen?