DEAR: The 120-day method to create an inflection point in your life

Francis Bacon once said, "Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed".

This article is about applying Bacon's piece of wisdom to the process of transforming your mind, or your brain - towards more leadership and happiness.

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It is true that under certain very specific circumstances, one can create a habit in 21 days. However, in 95% of the cases, that expectation leads to disillusionment.

To clear the confusion, let us revisit the recent scientific discoveries on the subject.

Until 20 years ago, to simplify things, psychologists thought that we had a fixed personality. They boxed us into types, and psychometry even became a?lucrative business.

This changed in 1998 when researchers validated what ancient sages such as the Buddha or Patanjali had experienced thousands of years ago: An adult brain can physically reconfigure itself.

They called it?neuro-plasticity?– Richard Davidson is one of the leading scientists on the topic.

It is critical to recognize however that while our brains are plastic, they are not a blank slate like a child’s brain, so any new neural pathway will be competing with old neural pathways.

Let’s call this phenomenon neuro-inertia.

In other words, your brain can change, but it’s going to take time, and maybe even some effort.

Although this is not research-based, I would like to share that our experience at Potentialife has helped us highlight 3 types of neuro-inertia, and 3 corresponding processes that can be followed, if we are wise enough to accept those 3 types.

Let’s call that phenomenon neuro-acceptance.

1. It takes time for us to truly identify our innermost aspirations, beneath layers of social expectations – we can to that through a Discovery process (D)

When asked to articulate some leadership change goals, most executives come up with statements such as, ‘I should be more patient’, or ‘I need to work on strategic thinking’.

Words such as ‘should’ and ‘need’ are symptomatic of expectations that come from outside – the source may be in childhood, in the cultural environment, or in negative ‘developmental’ feedback that one has received at work.

Instead, when people work on ‘Self-concordant goals’, i.e. goals that are very dear to them at the deepest level, they put much more energy into accomplishing them.

Discovery (D) is the process we take people through towards self-concordance. It involves abstaining from imposing a change agenda and leveraging non-linear thinking (through imagination, revisiting the past, guided visualization), in a safe and warm environment.

In our experience, Discovery (D) often takes 3 months, or 90 days, to happen.?

2. For any innermost aspiration, it takes time for us to find a practical recipe that works well for us – we can do that through a process of Experimenting (E)

When they decide to work on, to take an easy example, physical exercise, most people imagine that the specific recipe that they have been exposed to through their friends, random readings of preaching – is the one they ‘need’ to implement.

For example, a senior executive may think that she ‘needs’ to go to the gym every day.

And then reality kicks in. First, how to find the time? Secondly, what if she doesn’t really enjoy working out in the gym? We all know that gyms make a living out of unused memberships!

Experimenting (E), in contrast with this prescriptive approach, offers the possibility to find the path of least resistance and highest fulfillment, through an iterative trial-and-error process.

For instance, the senior executive in question would embark on an exploration of at least 10 types of physical exercise, to find which activity, time of the day, duration, and frequency create the most natural fit with her life.

Through Potentialife programs, we have found that another 3 months, or 90 days, is a good time to dedicate to Experimenting (E) - these 3 months can overlap with the 3 months of Discovery (D).

3. For any recipe that works well for us, it takes time for us to migrate it from short-term memory to long-term neural pathways – we can do that by leveraging the psychological fuel of Appreciation (A)

In 2007, Harvard University neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone and his team published a seminal study where they showed how week after week, the neural pathways associated with learning a new and simple piano exercise were migrating from short-term to long-term memory. After 4 weeks, the migration was complete.

This study is the source of all the articles and books that promised you change in 21 or 28-days.

To put that in perspective, we at Potentialife would say that Pascual-Leone’s 21 or 28 days start only once the Discovery (D) and Experiment (E) stages have been completed.

Let us now assume that you have reached that exciting point…

Your 21 or 28 days (and that can stretch to much longer if you have competing habits or neural pathways that interfere with the new one, in other words, if you don’t live in a university laboratory) will be full or lapsing, and trying again, and lapsing, and trying again, etc. Change is not for the faint-hearted!

Yet we have found that orchestrating a process where people take part in discussions where they share their small victories, leads to people gaining the strength and courage to try again. For that to happen, the focus of the discussions should exclusively be on the positive (i.e. I am proud to say that last week I exercised twice, even though I didn’t this week).

As Tal Ben-Shahar says, “When we appreciate, the good appreciates”.

This is the Appreciation process (A). If we assign another 3 months, or 90 days to it – this process can only start when at least 1 month of Discovery (D) and Experiments (E) have been initiated. The brings the minimum duration of the process to 4 months i.e. 120 days.

In support of the 3 above processes, people who are successful at changing their lives make sure that they stay connected to their change journey by creating simple change Rituals (R)

The last piece of neuro-acceptance consists of leveraging our sub-conscious mind to support our conscious change journey. Tal Ben-Shahar has a great video that talks about that, drawing a parallel with the sub-conscious habit of brushing one’s teeth every morning.

Rituals (R) are part of our process that helps us do that.

As demonstrated by Roy Baumeister, we have a finite amount of willpower. If we use it laser-sharp, we can certainly create a simple ritual, maybe in 21 or 28 days, that will act as a trigger mechanism for our Discovery (D), Experiments (E), Appreciation (A) to take place.

This is exactly what, for instance, the 21-day abundance challenge helps people accomplish.

In another form, this exactly what we offer through the weekly Potentialife modules.

There are other age-old change rituals available to us, such as meditation, certain yoga practices, prayer. Personally, I leveraging the practice of structured journaling a lot – every day.

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The acronym D-E-A-R encapsulates all the wisdom of neuro-acceptance into a change process that is easy to remember, and easy to practice – provided that one accepts the reality of neuro-inertia.

D-E-A-R is the guiding framework through which the Potentialife India team strives to bring Potentialife to life, to help hundreds of leaders grow their happiness and their energy.