How Hard Can It Be to Travel One Yard?
"Promise me you'll always remember that you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." - Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)
What’s something you really want or even “need” to change, but for whatever reason, haven’t? For example, this could be pursuing a health-related goal, learning a new skill, having an important conversation, connecting with another person, or even going on a vacation or adventure. This is a question I enjoy asking colleagues but find I often avoid asking myself. With others, it provides me the opportunity to encourage them in their desire, but for me it exposes an often painful gap between “what is and what could be.”
Recently I’ve found myself in conversations with a few colleagues who expressed that some of their health-related goals had become bogged down or even come to a screeching halt. They attributed this to “busyness,” but as I reflected on those conversations and my own similar experiences (like the “junk food” that continually calls to me), I concluded there was more at play – that when it comes to change we often find ourselves trapped in the combined gravitational pull of maintaining the status quo and taking the pathway of least resistance, and in both instances don’t have a plan to generate the “escape velocity” to take our lives in our new “desired” direction.
There is, indeed, more at play. In fact, there is an entire body of science that has developed around the psychology of human behavior and how we can overcome our “behavioral entropy” in order to make choices and changes that will enhance our lives. But in order for us to be successful, we’ll have to understand that we humans are not the “rational” creatures we’ve come to believe ourselves to be …. We’ll have to learn how to navigate what I have come to know as the “longest yard.”
The longest yard is the gap between our “knowing” and our “doing.” It comprises the one-foot distance between head and heart (knowing to believing) and the two-foot distance between heart and hands (believing to doing). Now you may be thinking, “But it’s only 1 yard … how hard can it be?!” Well, as the recent experience of my well-educated, well-resourced, and really smart colleagues demonstrates (as well as my own many times over – and likely yours), when it comes to traveling those 36 inches and changing our behavior, it can often seem very hard. So hard, in fact, that we regularly “give up.” It is therefore comforting to know that we also regularly make it much more difficult than it has to be. And there in lies our hope.
So back to my original question: What’s something you really want or even “need” to change, but haven’t? What are your behaviors for which you seem to be stuck “one yard,” or even “two feet,” from initiation? Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be exploring some of the science focused on helping us to travel that “longest yard,” and will share some practical application of that science. If you find yourself “stuck” in any area of your life, this is an opportunity you won’t want to miss. And be sure to bring your PeerRxMed partner along for the ride … they may have a significant role to play.