Many of us have set ourselves the goal of engaging in the improvement of those around us, or in a broader sense, in improving the world. Personal trainers, youth instructors, martial arts coaches amongst many others have taken on a commitment to lead people to change their lives for the better. This is also true for those who practice coaching. In my understanding, the premise of anyone who engages in these areas, in which man tries to give of himself to others, to teach and lead others in some direction, is that human change is both desirable and possible
If there is no ability to change, these are only empty words.
In order for a person to give to others, he must himself transcend the affairs of daily life. More than that, in order to be able to elevate someone else, a person must first elevate him or herself. In order to achieve this transcendence, he must first answer a number of questions about himself. Where does he stand, what has he achieved so far in his own life, and what does he want to achieve in the rest of the time he has left on earth. Is she (or he) the "model" of herself the best she can be? What can she improve? Is it necessary for a person to remain as he is today? If not, what should he do?
The pace at which we live today is fast, and we are all engaged in a lot of intense activities throughout the day and year. This does not leave us much room and time for thinking. Our lives are saturated with stress and constant doing, and often with more than a little frustration, lack and sorrow. No one can escape it, no matter how tall, beautiful, smart or rich he/she is.
If a person wants to change the way he experiences his life, and wants to experience more happiness and less frustration, he must make changes to his own thoughts first. Not that a change of mind is sufficient in of its own. But it is certainly a necessary one. This change is in the way of thinking, so the key to it is the training of the human mind, and the training of the self-consciousness.
Our sense of happiness or frustration can change in an instant as the result of one piece of information or another entering our consciousness. It is the mind that gives the interpretation, and the mind which determines whether we will feel happiness or frustration and sorrow. Let me provide a simple example. Two people are sitting in a hotel talking, telling each other about the price of the vacation they are currently taking. The first one tells the other how happy he is that he got the dream vacation at a very discounted price, thus saving a great deal of money. He feels happy and enjoys every moment very much. However, when his friend says that he actually paid about half of that sum for the very same deal, in one moment the first person's feeling of happiness becomes a feeling of frustration, since he now feels that he has actually lost majorly in comparison to his friend.
How strange! The facts have not changed, but with the new interpretation, a new feeling has entered the consciousness. Happiness was gone, and it was replaced by sorrow. I am sure that each and every one of us can give many such examples, from different areas of life.
Is change a desirable thing?
Are there any of us who would not want to change, even slightly, the circumstances of our lives? If one could choose whether to live in suffering or to live in happiness, would anyone choose suffering? Still, in our lives we feel quite a bit of frustration and suffering. More than once a day we are offended by another person's words, or his acts. We often feel anger, jealousy or worry.
These are not pleasant feelings, and if we could choose, we would probably choose not to feel them. It seems then, that the answer to the question of whether change is a desirable thing is clear.
But a change in the quality of life does not depend only on what we know or learn to feel or think. We will return to this issue later.
We would all derive satisfaction from being able to control our minds and souls to the degree that we could simply decide to not feel these feelings, to ignore them, to transcend them. How good it would be if we could feel satisfaction, transcendence, calmness and contentment from our actions on a regular basis? After all, in almost every action we take, there is an intention and desire to create a certain enjoyable result for ourselves or for others.
Is change possible?
This then, is the central and real question. Is it possible?
Can a person change himself, direct his actions and thoughts, and thus make himself feel more happiness or less frustration or suffering? It is true that people do not usually change, and their character does not change over the years. However, there are cases where this happens. What is certain is that negative traits or rather negative habits do not change if you do not make a real effort to achieve the desired result.
Our emotional reactions, outbursts of anger, tendency to depression or old reaction habits do not change by themselves. If you let old habits survive, and perhaps even strengthen them over the years, you will never get rid of them.
The first basic condition for the possibility of change is knowledge. We must know, be aware that something needs to change and also be aware of what exactly is the thing we need to change. It is necessary, but insufficient. A person should also want to change, and decide to change. But even these are not enough, by themselves. How many times in your life have you decided to go on a diet and how many times have you decided that from now on you are going to engage in regular exercise? And how many times have you not stood by that decision, or not taken a single step in order to turn those into reality? Ask anyone trying to quit a habit or addiction, someone trying to quit smoking, for example. It's hard, often in the extreme.
Human nature "loves" habit and routine. Children, and especially adults love a routine, and have a hard time changing habits. Humans do a lot of daily activities automatically, from the way they soap themselves in the shower to the way that they dry themselves with the towel upon coming out of the shower. The route they take to and from work as well as a great many other routine activities. Check this out for yourself. Freud called this the economic model. He also argued that man is not willing to invest energy in order to change. Resisting change is a very natural thing, especially in those areas where a lot of effort is required in order to implement the change.
Just as it takes a lot of time and investment to learn to walk, read, develop physical fitness, learn a profession or play the piano well, so too, a change in thought and reaction patterns may take a lot of time and effort. And yet it is possible. Those who do not believe this, find it difficult to imagine that they can influence others to change their habits. Among other things, a person must have high levels of motivation, enthusiasm and interest around the change, otherwise they will not be able to persevere in their attempts.
This is the right juncture in our conversation for two important observations: one is the time that it takes to make a behavioral change or change of habits, and the other is related to the wheel of change model.
In the first matter, there are a lot of popular "theories" that claim that changing habits takes 21 days, 30 days, 90 days. The various personal development sites are full of flash promises of this kind. The truth is that it is not at all possible to predict the length of time needed for change. But what is certain is that the more you manage to persevere with it, the greater the chance of transforming the behavior into a habit.
But this requires motivation and reward, so that some people guide us to first find different means of self-rewards (see Charles Duhigg's much cited book "The Power of Habit", "Changing Habits: Improve your Life by Changing your Habits" by John Roberts, 2018, or Cyndi O'Meara's "Changing Habits Changing Lives", 1998). You can also find some good books on the subject in the Hebrew language, for example "For a change" by Dr. Raya Yoeli, or Noam's "Guide to Changing Habits".
Moreover, even those who have managed to change habits are not exempt from the constant struggle with temptation, or laziness. It takes a lot of courage, perseverance and determination to keep up with new habits.
How do we do this, then?
Modern life has taught us that we are all connected to each other. If a person seeks only his own happiness, he will not be able to achieve it, because we are interdependent, required to communicate, trade, work and spend time in each other’s company every day. Therefore, only if we can contribute to the change for the better of those around us, can we also contribute to our own happiness. And this we can achieve, as stated, only if we begin to change ourselves.
Changing existing habits is a complex process of creating a new habit in place of an old one. When the new habit is markedly different from the old one, the task is even more difficult. We actually want to "pave" or open a new neural pathway in the brain, which we will then adopt and activate in the future. After learning the new "route", we will be able to activate it almost automatically, intuitively and instinctively, just as we used to react differently, in the old way.
This is similar to the plowing a furrow. Pathways are created by repeated practice, time after time, so that after a while, our response is automatic; in the same way that the wheels of a cart eventually need almost no guidance in the plowed furrow. After all, this is how we acquired our habits in the first place. Now, however, we want to replace them with new habits.
New research (for example, that has come out of Dartmouth College, N.H., USA and was referenced in a February 2020 Forbes article by Jason Cell) shows that certain brain activity is indeed responsible for creating or controlling human habits. It turns out that creating a new habit requires more involvement of the thinking brain lobes (the frontal cortex), whereas strengthening habits is often a more unconscious than conscious process.
There are different ways to create change. It can be obtained through self-talk, notes on the fridge, a personal trainer, a support group, registration to a course and many other methods. Each of these methods can be expanded upon, and many things have been written about it, in articles and books. I will briefly review a few ideas that have received scientific research support of some sort.
First, it is advisable to be "generous" with ourselves, and not to be too tough, too judgmental, since as stated, changing habits is a tough business. Second, it is worthwhile to find the root cause of the old habit, in all sorts of ways (deepening through the repeated use of "why?" questions, useful in cause-and-effect diagrams and more). The cause is not always obvious or easily detectable.
A tendency towards impulse shopping, for example, may be due to some emotional "hole" or lack of meaning in life, or a lack of satisfaction or our inability to meet certain needs, that do not always seem to be directly related.
Next, it is best to address the underlying problem (the same ‘hole’ or dissatisfaction), rather than the apparent symptom sitting on the surface (the obsessive shopping). It is highly desirable to record, transcribe, preferably in detail, our thoughts on the matter of habit and its causes.
Finding a "journey friend" (friend, spouse, coach, rabbi, etc.) can be helpful. The need to "stand trial" and be responsible in front of at least one other person strengthens the motivation to persevere in the change process. If possible, it is worth declaring, in one form or another, the decision and commitment to make the change, publicly, which further strengthens the new behavior and the ability to adhere to the change. In order to get you out for a daily walk, there is nothing better than a walking companion waiting for you outside your home every evening at nine o’clock.
Be patient and tolerant with yourself, taking time to see results that last. Keep in mind that there will always be falls and failures. Every day is a good day to start over. And if you fell, missed or "faked" it, it is not the end of the story, nor the world. The important thing is to get back into the groove, to start again, and in time the habit will settle in and become a natural part of your daily behaviour.
Using meditation as a means of changing habits
Meditation is one of the many ways to achieve the change in our habits, a change that comes from the mind and from inside our brain. It is a process through which a person learns to discover his own ability to change, to focus his mind, to better control his moods and emotions. Self-change is a prerequisite for our ability to help others change. The meditation I am talking about should also be based on wisdom, and its main purpose is to change ourselves, to become better human beings, in order to be more competent and able to change others around us.
If we know how to change others for the better, we will actually know how to serve the world more wisely and more effectively. Thus, meditation will give us the most gained meaning, and the biggest reward.
In addition, meditation has very positive effects on the mind and body. Many studies today show a direct link between meditation and these positive effects on the body and mind. Twenty to thirty minutes of daily meditation can have an effect on reducing anxiety, lowering the level of mental stress, improving the immune system, the tendency to anger, and more.
In his book "Why Meditate", from 2008, Matthew Ricard mentions many of the studies that have been conducted by the leading universities around the world. The American Mind and Life Institute, which brings together science and observational insights (mainly Tibetan meditative techniques), also leads the study of the connection between quality of life and meditation as well as the connection between the scientific field and Buddhist meditation. This work endeavors to provide us a better understanding of meditation’s many benefits but with a scientific basis. I highly recommend taking a look at their online presence: website, blog and various posts.
Today, science tells us the brain has an ability to change throughout our entire lives - until the day we die - which is contrary to what was thought only twenty years ago. Routine and training play a crucial part in this. Brain training not only improves a person's ability to deal with feelings of jealousy, anger, anxiety and fear, but also improves his understanding of how the mind works, and helps us to better understand reality.
This, in turn, allows him to mobilize the spiritual resources necessary to succeed in the daily vortices of life more easily, without breaking down or being easily distracted from the goals he sets for himself, and allows him to learn and draw meaningful takeaways from different "life lessons." This way, he will be able to avoid more pain and suffering, and increase the happiness he can feel in himself and give to others.
The role of the one who has taken it upon himself to influence others is, then, to improve himself first. Adding meditation aimed at freeing the mind from the shackles of anger, jealousy, fear, whimsy, arrogance and ignorance has the potential to contribute not only to a better life for oneself; he or she will be able to contribute to significant change even among those whom they mentor. It is important to emphasize that this is the same type of meditation whose source and purpose are both altruistic love and compassion for the other.
If you want real and long lasting results, you cannot settle for a one-time or sporadic event, although there would be no harm in doing so; on the contrary. However, for significant results it is necessary to integrate the meditation technique consistently, systematically and intelligently into the training and activity with others. This will add an important dimension to our ability to change lives. All that remains is to choose a method, learn a particular technique, practice a lot and get going. More about that at our next conversation.