Tipping points

Chances are, if you have spent time with any news media at this time of year, you already know why you have not had much success sticking to your New Year’s resolutions.

You didn’t have a clear idea of what you needed to do.

You lacked a concrete plan of action and specific, measurable goals.

You threw in the towel after the first relapse.

“We always remind people that they have been doing X behavior for however many years and it is very comfortable,” said one Spokane counselor. “We are good at our ‘bad’ behavior, and we are novices at the new behavior. Most of us don’t like to feel like novices.”

So change is hard.

But instead of resulting from a long, drawn-out process, can it be prompted by a bolt out of the blue?

William R. Miller suspects the answer is yes. A professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico and lead author of “Quantum Change: When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives,” he speaks of people experiencing an “aha!” moment.

He has defined that as “a vivid, surprising, benevolent, and enduring personal transformation.”

You can’t plan them. They don’t run on a schedule.

But they can make all the difference.

Miller’s focus has more to do with sudden shifts in values and perspectives than, say, weight loss or smoking cessation.

But can a perfectly-timed magic moment of motivation be a catalyst for those kinds of changes, too?

Can seeing a Christmas photo and wincing at the recognition of how much weight you have gained prompt radical new behaviors?

Could reading a story about slaughterhouses be the nudge you’ve needed to act on your longtime pledge to adopt a vegetarian diet?

First, it helps to understand how change is thought to happen.

James Prochaska, a professor of psychology at the University of Rhode Island, has been called one of the world’s experts on readiness for change.

He breaks it down into five stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance.

That sounds like a lot of work. But maybe, in certain cases, timing is everything.

Get zapped by the right inspiration and you might be instantly propelled toward new, improved behavior.

Like many Americans who were teens during the 1940s, Spokane’s Jim Roeber started smoking when he was young. By the time he was 20, he was up to two packs a day.

Then something happened. “One Sunday afternoon in January, 1965, I sat smoking, of course, and reading an article in Reader’s Digest,” he wrote. “It was just one more article about the dangers of nicotine and cigarette tar.”

But that particular piece compared the build-up of gunk on the lung tissue to the accumulation of sand and gravel on a small island in a stream.

“That was something I could understand,” he wrote. “No preaching. Just simple physics.”

It made an impression.

Roeber snuffed out the cigarette he had lit and he hasn’t smoked again in almost 42 years.

South Hill resident Sarah Laudenbach, 49, was facing knee replacement surgery awhile back. Her doctor gently confided that she really needed to lose some weight before the operation.

Something clicked. “I finally committed to a weight-loss program.”

She went on to drop more than 50 pounds.

Of course, it could be that those individuals and many others like them were ready to make a change and just needed the right push.

Joseph Trimble, professor of psychology at Western Washington University, understands how these transformations can seem as if someone suddenly flipped a switch and lifestyle revisions just seemed to happen. “But when it comes down to it, those possibilities, insights and life-changing decisions were always there,” he said.

He quoted novelist Mary Shelley: “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist of creating out of a void, but out of chaos.”

Sometimes we just need a spark to light our way.

“The result often is constructive insight, invention, inspiration and, most important, change,” said Trimble.

Such thinking is hardly new to the religious.

But some counselors argue that there is nothing mystical about receptiveness to self-improvement and different ways of doing things.

It has been said, after all, that change happens when the cost of staying the same is higher than the cost of changing.

Spokane life-coach Cynthia Hallanger acknowledged that sometimes change can be “instantaneous” or the result of some accumulated “tipping point.”

“I think of my dad deciding to smoke his last cigarette when his package ran out while driving on the freeway nearly 30 years ago,” she said.

Usually, though, it results from a plan and a process, she said.

“In my experience, changes tend to take place when people make a committed decision,” she said. “It’s not enough to just have an intention to engage in healthful living, create peace of mind, et cetera. Those ideals must be accompanied by a commitment in order for the necessary follow-through to take place.”

So, in other words, sitting around waiting for your magic moment might not be the best way to start getting in shape, doing a better job of tracking your finances or fighting back against clutter.

There’s a classic cartoon showing a lab-coated scientist at a chalk board. A series of complex math scribblings lead to a point in the middle of the chalkboard where the scientist has written “Then a miracle happens.”

After that, the equation resumes.

It’s an optimistic outlook, certainly, but not especially reliable.

So if you want to forge a somewhat sturdier bridge between bad old behavior and desired new behavior, here is some classic New Year’s advice, gathered from a variety of sources. (Just in case your magic moment doesn’t strike before tomorrow).

Make your resolution about doing something, not about “not” doing something.

Be realistic.

Let those around you know that you will need their support.

Realize that the whole reason you formed your bad habits in the first place is that they filled a need. Try to understand those needs.

Write down the pros and cons of making the change.

Regularly visualize the rewards for making the change.

Don’t try to alter 16 things about yourself all at once.

Make sure it’s something you want to change about yourself, not something someone else wants to see changed.

And finally, if you fall off, get back up on the horse.