Your most valuable tool for getting what you want

Is there anything in your life you’d like to change? If you answered ‘no,’ I’d really be surprised. I might also secretly wonder if you were being truthful with me — but more importantly — with yourself.

Most of us have something — likely several things in fact — that we’d like to change in our lives. These are typically things that can make life better, and for the most part largely center around a personal lifestyle change that we hope can make us happier and more fulfilled.

One of the most common desires I hear from friends and family pertains to weight and body image. If I could just be 15 pounds thinner… if I could just lose a few inches on my thighs… and so on. This kind of change could have positive benefits on your health, but often that aspect is secondary to the dream of fitting into a cute swimsuit at the end of spring.

And you know what? That’s ok. Whatever your motivation — it’s the end results that count… improved blood pressure, decreased risk of diabetes and heart disease, greater likelihood of a longer, more active life — and personal happiness.

Getting there…

Beyond generalizing, have you thought about what you’d need to do to make this a reality? I mean, what specific steps would you need to take to lose those pounds and inches and reach your desired weight — or any specific lifestyle change you want to make, for that matter?

For now, let’s focus on weight.

Of course it’s not always a one-size-fits all situation, but universally you’d need to probably change your diet. You’d need to regularly exercise. You may need to make other personalized lifestyle adjustments too. Maybe you don’t sleep enough. Maybe regular consumption of alcohol is contributing to weight gain. Maybe someone or something is causing you stress on regular basis, affecting how you feel about yourself and subconsciously impacting your eating habits.

We’ve just named off about five things that realistically you’d have to consider changing to meet your goal. For a lot of us that can be off-putting. It seems like too many things… too many changes all at once. But you may actually increase your odds of meeting your goals if you decide to make all the necessary changes at once instead of focusing on one at a time…

Just go for it

The age-old adage — one step at a time — is not bad advice. Sometimes when you’re overwhelmed that saying is a good reminder to slow down and focus. But science is indicating that when we want real change in our lives, the brain may actually handle bigger changes, or multiple changes, better than when we focus on just one thing.

I read about this in a study paper I came across recently. The technical parts of it are… well, quite technical. But it has to do with the neural plasticity of your amazing brain.

Dr. Michael Cutler explains neural plasticity this way, “With each new experience (thought, stimulus, or event) your brain slightly re-wires its physical structure. This means you can learn to like new foods, tastes, evolve your thoughts into good-feeling ones (i.e. thoughts that cause good emotions within you) and even train new motor skills through repeated thoughts.

“By repeating the desired neuron activity over and over, you activate nerve connections (circuits) that have been dormant and get them firing again. In fact, every thought and every experience you have changes your brain.”

If your brain can do all that, chance are high you’ve been selling yourself short when it comes to your ability to change your life for the better — and that’s exactly what the researchers found…

Lifestyle change: More is easier

Michael Mrazek, director of research at UC Santa Barbara Center for Mindfulness & Human Potential and lead author, said the six-week study from which the paper is drawn shows that simultaneous, significant improvement across a broad range of mental and physical functions is possible to achieve.

It also appears that it’s easier…

In fact participants in the intervention all showed dramatic improvements in more than a dozen different outcomes, including strength, endurance, flexibility, working memory, standardized test performance, focus, mood, self-esteem, mindfulness and life satisfaction.

In the study, the researchers recruited college students for an intensive lifestyle change program. They had to commit five hours a day each weekday for six week. That must have seemed like an eternity to them, but you and I know that’s a drop in the hat.

So what did they do? They did 2.5 hours of physical exercise (including yoga and Pilates), one hour of mindfulness practice and 1.5 hours of lecture or discussion on topics such as sleep, nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, compassion, relationships or wellbeing. They were advised to limit alcohol consumption to one drink a day, eat a diet of mostly whole foods and sleep 8-10 hours a day. During the study they were also tested and their brains underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Their lifestyle change intervention was a success!

Even six weeks after participating, the students stuck to their guns and continued to show improvement in all areas — leading Mrazek to conclude, “Recent research suggests it’s often more effective to make two or more changes simultaneously, especially when those changes reinforce one another. It’s easier to drink less coffee if at the same time you get more sleep. Our intervention extended this logic by helping people make progress in many ways, which can create an upward spiral where one success supports the next.”

So perhaps our new way of thinking should change from “one step at a time…” to hurdling “five steps at a time” as long as the support beams are strong.

Another thing the study leader pointed out is that real people’s lives don’t occur in a vacuum. If your brain just handles daily life, it’s juggling multiple things at once. It makes sense that it would be pretty good at that — doing it day in and day out. So applying what it does naturally to making an important major lifestyle change may be using your brain’s best skill set. And that makes it your most valuable tool for getting what you want.

Best of luck!