In his book, “The Happiness Hypothesis” Jonatahan Haidt explains the challenge with an epiphany that shifts your outlook or even changes your life. After the light bulb goes off, you are often right back in your prior habits three months later. In order to make lasting change you need to retrain your emotional mind and this takes prolonged practice over time to make the shift. This is also the challenge with news years resolutions or a short term diet; they don’t stick and they are even less effective if it is purely logical with no emotional or heart appeal (see last week’s posts about hears and minds).
When I have an epiphany, it feels like the whole world has shifted and how could it not stick? And then I get back into my world of every day living and work and a month later I come across some notes from that great speaker or class I took and realize that my light bulb moment burnt out. How did that happen? Jonathan Haidt explains in his book (click on his link above for some fascinating information on happiness) that unfortunately it has to do with our brain’s wiring and our love of habitual patterns that sneak back into our routines.
The good news is that you can make that epiphany stick through deliberate shifts of your habits. Support is crucial in this process; you need this for when you falter and need that boost to re-start again and some accountability helps too. That is why people who have a buddy to meet at the gym are more successful in continuing to go, why the group weight watchers programs are effective and why I have seen such amazing results with individuals who hire me for ongoing coaching and the Team Advantage coaching program (I meet with the team 12 times over 16 weeks after the initial kick off). The ongoing coaching helps affect long lasting shifts in habits and behavior changes beyond the initial epiphany.
Thriving is a team sport. Find a good support person or people and then reinvigorate those epiphanies of yours to turn them into real changes that will have you thriving at a whole new level.
photo credit: cheerful monk via flickr creative commons