There is an entire industry that exists these days with one goal: to sell you the idea that you can be anything you want, and all you need is a secret formula. A secret formula they’re more than happy to sell to you in their video course. Oh, and it happens to be on special offer at the moment.
These kinds of offers appeal to a lot of people, because who doesn’t want to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, or get their music in the charts, or lose 25% of their body weight and get ripped with just one simple change?
They’re offering big rewards for minimal effort. Which is why I believe you should be wary. It’s not far off promising you perpetual motion.
Selling you what you can’t have
I don’t think these things work, per say. I don’t think any single self-help course or book can radically change your life, as such. There isn’t exactly a magic secret that will allow you to transform yourself into a better, richer, happier, or smarter version of yourself.
But…
You’ll noticed that I hedged my words somewhat in that last paragraph. Because actually, I think there is a secret to self-improvement. Where I differ from the people peddling those magic video courses and ebooks is that I think that secret is a) different for every individual and b) genuinely a secret that you’ll never consciously know.
What makes us change?
The key to understanding this is to ask if instantaneous change is possible. I don’t mean in the sense that one minute you’re playing on the Xbox and the next you’re a blob fish. But rather, do big behavioural changes really happen instantly?
Take a lifelong smoker who decides one day to give it up. They stab the last burning remains of what will be their final cigarette down into the ashtray and never smoke again. They live to be 109 and develop the lung capacity of a fully-grown hippo.
Or what about someone who is seriously overweight. One day they empty their cupboard of biscuits, crisps, chocolate and ice cream (which involves several cloths as it should have been in the freezer) and take up long distance running. Within a year they’ve lost 14 stone and came third in the Grand National without the use of a horse.
Or take my own story. I used to be addicted to fizzy drinks. I’d have four or five cans of Coke or Pepsi a day. I couldn’t go without it; I’d get headaches, dry mouth, and every minute without it was a battle against my brain and body. Then, one day, I just decided I didn’t want to be like this anymore. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried to quit, but suddenly I did it. Now I have a bottle or a pint or two every couple of weeks. It’s gone from a daily addiction to an occasional treat.
Why do these people, myself included, suddenly decide to do these things? Did they pay $99 for a ten-part video course they saw advertised on YouTube? Did they read a celebrity self-help book that prompted the realisation they needed to change? Was it fate?
Pressure building in the background
There are occasions that can create this kind of ‘lightning bolt’ realisation. Having a heart attack, for example. Or maybe losing a loved one to a disease caused by lifestyle choices.
But I don’t believe this is the standard trigger for change in most circumstances. I believe what happened in these cases – and there are plenty of cases like these once you strip out the eccentricities of my examples – is that a build up of factors eventually lead to a behavioural tipping point.
There was no sudden spark of realisation, just the culmination of factors, including time, environment, belief and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Think of it like a toaster popping – it may seem sudden, but there’s a lot that’s happened before to make that toaster pop. Not least of which is the manufacturing of the toaster.
Brain bypasses
If you ever delve into the fascinating topic of free will, you may come across experiments that show the brain makes decisions to perform actions like move a hand before the conscious mind is aware of the choice. I think even big behavioural changes are a bit like that.
Think of it like building a new bypass. While traffic continues racing down the traditional routes, a huge number of factors gradually reshape the pathways of our brains, creating a new road that leads somewhere else: a new behaviour.
One day the final connection clicks into place, the traffic cones are removed, and our brain has a new bypass, complete with services and petrol station. It expedites new decisions and makes that change in behaviour seem natural, almost like it’s been our default all along.
This is the culmination of days, weeks, months or even years of gradually collecting insights and subtly experimenting with changes in behaviour that can build up an unstoppable momentum and eventually burst the dam of your brain’s favourite go-to actions.
Change is possible – it just isn’t magic
So, in fact, those magic courses may indeed help you to change your life. But I don’t think that they, and they alone, will transform anything. Changing your life or your behaviour can be a noble goal, but it doesn’t happen with a credit card.
You should always be open to learning – especially from people who have already achieved something that you want – but make sure you approach any offer like this in the right frame of mind.
Think of it like those magazines that allow you to build a model of the Bat Mobile or something in weekly instalments. Each week you get a wheel or a bit of chassis or some black furry Bat Dice to hang on the Bat Rearview Bat Mirror.
That’s what change is like. You collect small pieces and slowly put them together. And over time, holy smokes Batman, you’ve changed.
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Header photo by Samuel Scrimshaw on Unsplash
