Can You Turn Your Life Around In an Instant?
The answer, like so many things, is yes and no. Let’s start with the “yes,” albeit briefly, because it might not be what you expect.
You can certainly turn your life around for the negative in an instant, and it bears mentioning. Everything could be clicking in life — great job, new significant other who you are in love with — and you get into a car after just one drink too many from a Friday night out with co-workers. You can literally ruin your life, and that of another(s), in an instant. That is just one example. There are millions. Decisions matter and have consequences, which is why I bring this up. Yes, you can ruin your life in an instant, and far too many people have.
But what about what likely brought you to this blog? Can you turn your life around for the positive in an instant? Well, probably not, psychologically speaking anyway, but there can be that feeling of “the moment where everything changed.” David Goggins, for example, the inspirational former 300-pound unhappily drifting person, believes he looked in the mirror and believes to have instantly dedicated himself to a new life. He did, in fact, then lose an amazing amount of weight in a short period of time while studying for a test he didn’t think he could possibly pass — and went from someone with no self-confidence to a Navy SEAL. In what felt like an instant that moment in the mirror.
And you can do something equally amazing with your life. There are few things I speak as absolutes, but that is one of them. I saw this message below on Facebook just this morning, and have seen hundreds more of its type.
This ISN’T atypical. And that is the most optimistic thing I can think of. People have turned their lives around, and at all ages: 16, 26, 47, 65, 80, and beyond. If you are reading this, it doesn’t matter your age OR your goal, you can change your life for the better. That, to me, is not even the question.
It just doesn’t happen in a moment. Which is why I am writing this blog. It happens in many tiny moments that will then turn into the mirror moment, when you look yourself straight in the eye and know you have no more excuses — you’ve decided to NOT have a single excuse even a moment longer, and absolutely can say with authenticity and authority, “I got this!”
What are those tiny moments? I’ll link my recent interview with Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D., a world-renowned psychiatrist, neuroscientist, New York Times best-selling author, and one of the most popular TED Talk speakers to date. He studies the neural mechanisms that, you guessed it, can change your life. That turn bad habits into good. That turn your life around. Those moments, then, which are elaborated in much greater detail in the podcast, consist of self-awareness in the moment. If you want to turn your life around, you likely have bad habits, right? When you are about to partake in the habit — let’s make it simple and say an hour of procrastination, basically doing nothing on your couch — take a pause. Be aware that you just went to your couch. That you don’t really need the downtime BUT that you have these goals for your life, for your day, that are enriching. Seeing people, doing things. Then compare that to an hour of nothing on the couch — our brains love comparisons and to find the “bigger, better thing.” Which is more rewarding? Calling that friend? Reading that book? Or mindlessly flipping channels.
Something amazing is going to happen. Do this for a few weeks or a month, and your life will start to turn itself around. You’ll be working on that project you’ve been dreaming about. You’ll be eating healthily. Dr. Brewer has treated thousands (and through his books and speeches, millions) with this incredibly simple technique. And it is, to date, much more effective than any other treatment we know of. So you CAN start now. It will take a few weeks, but to answer the question at the top of the blog, you most certainly can turn your life around. And it will feel like an instant.