The Holy Sh*t Moment: How lasting change can happen in an instant. James Fell
had been fencing just a couple of months. The fencing area at the Kentucky YMCA is an intimate space atop three flights of stairs; climbing them was a workout all by itself. She’d be gasping and sweating by the time she reached the top, wondering, Why the hell am I here?
Her commitment to continue was tenuous. Then a switch flipped.
On that day, early in her fencing career, Lesley noticed a group of child fencers had stopped their practice to watch the adults engaging in partner drills. Knowing she was being observed by these impressionable youths, she doubled her efforts at parries and lunges, trying her best to make a good show. “Suddenly, I felt like I belonged there,” she said, “and that I wanted to get really good at this.” There was a powerful awakening in both heart and mind that this is what she was meant to do. “In that emotional moment, I knew I would keep coming back to learn everything I could.” It was an overwhelming sensation that made her feel as though she could weep with joy at what she had discovered: she would not quit. She would do whatever it took to become the best she could be. She would not quit.
Sacred excrement!
Suddenly and with surety of purpose, Lesley changed. It was not the step-by-step process like many behavior-change theories focus on. It was both instantaneous and total. A new part of her mind opened; a new Lesley was born, one that would never have to struggle to be motivated again.
She saw progress in her skill in increments, and it led to quitting cancer sticks so she didn’t cough up alveoli during matches, giving up booze so the hangover didn’t feel like she had a brain aneurysm during practice, and eating healthier to fuel performance and lose forty pounds so she could move faster and present a smaller target for her opponents.
“The changes are substantial,” said William Miller, an emeritus professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico and cocreator of the popular behavior-change technique called motivational interviewing. Miller is also the coauthor of Quantum Change: When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives. He is a leader among the handful of researchers examining the topic of sudden and massive psychological change.
For the book, Professor Miller and his coauthor interviewed fifty-five people who had experienced life-changing epiphanies to create a structure around the phenomenon. He explained there can be focal changes, such as ceasing an addictive behavior, adopting a physical activity, or even a massive shift in mood, such as dramatic alleviation from depression. But such sudden change can also be broad-sweeping—a total shift in identity with far-reaching impact through a person’s life. What’s more, his coauthor did a ten-year follow-up and found something incredible: “No one had gone back to their state before the event happened. To the contrary, everyone spoke of moving ahead.”
Maintenance of the new behaviors, Miller explained, was high because it wasn’t a struggle to do so. “People didn’t talk about it using motivational language,” he said. They changed at a fundamental level. They became a new person for whom the new behaviors were the norm. It’s not a decision, it’s a sudden transformation.
I remember my holy-shit moment, when everything became clear. It’s when your inner grizzly is released from its cage as a roaring beast ready to achieve your utmost potential. It can manifest in various ways and for a multitude of reasons, but the reality is, it happens! It happens all the time—Professor Miller asserts as many as one-third of people experience such life-changing events—and yet we ignore the possibility of it happening for us. Accepting the verifiable reality of this phenomenon is the first step in making it happen for you.
It happened for Lesley that day, years ago. She was still overweight, still smoked and drank, and she was still a rookie fencer possessing negligible skill, but in that instant of self-reevaluation, her true personality awakened and ultimately led her to the silver-medal win. Along the way to a much healthier body, this new sense of purpose alleviated her despair.
“I decided in that moment that I was serious about becoming an athlete,” she said.
The pounds fell off.
Escaping Quiet Desperation
Think of all the people throughout history who never had the chance to reveal their genius. Across the eons, most of humanity remained uneducated, toiling at physical labor to survive.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Women too. Women especially.
But times are a-changin’. Bob Dylan doesn’t want you to sink; he is telling you to start swimming. To quote from the Pixar film Up: “Adventure is out there!”
You have one shot at life, and it’s not over yet. Many will continue to log the days, months, and years until they begin the long, slow slide into a dirt nap, heart songs remaining unsung.
For this to work, you must desire more. You must thirst for adventure. You must be ready to rattle the cage of the inner grizzly bear and yell, “Wake up! It’s time to kick ass!”
Adventure can take myriad forms. Think of Lesley. Fat, drunk, inhaling cancer sticks, depressed, and going nowhere except continuing an unexceptional life, few if any marks made upon the world, no quests undertaken, no major life missions accomplished.
And picking up a sword changed all that.
As you read this book, I want you to continue to remind yourself that adventure is out there. Never in the history of bipeds walking the earth has there been greater opportunity to seize the day and kick its ass.
Start imagining now. The adventure begins in the synapses. Awaken the part of your brain telling you the path you’re on isn’t enough. Endeavor to find out who you truly are and the stuff you’re made of. Embrace creativity in this mission. No one imagined the old Lesley as a champion fencer. Just because the astronaut spaceship has sailed doesn’t mean there aren’t out-of-this-world opportunities for you to chase.
Think of all the days since you came into the world as part 1 of your life. Your job is to imagine a lofty, exciting, purposeful path of You, Part 2. And just like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the sequel is going to blow away the original. As we move together through the chapters of this book, that’s a big part of your job: creating a basic outline of this exciting sequel to the first part of your life.
My job is to awaken the power that inspires you to live it.
Daydream Believing
You may want to write this down.
Or … maybe … you don’t.
I can’t remember phone numbers worth shit anymore. That’s because I don’t have to. Used to be, I could glance at a number in the phone book, walk over to the phone, and dial it in. Not tap or punch. Dial. I’m that old.
Unless you’re a troglodyte, you know that’s not how we do it anymore. Now I can’t remember seven digits without repeating them a few times; I’m out of practice.
A 2011 study published in Science reveals Google has a negative effect on memory, and as we’ll learn, information gathering—cramming a bunch of stuff into memory—is an important part of inducing a life-changing moment. The study reports: “when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself.” For these purposes, that’s not good, because your brain needs to ponder things, twist them around a bit, and reorganize them in a way that makes sense. If your deep thoughts are consigned only to a notebook, your unconscious won’t be examining them.
“Having a notebook is fine, as long as these ideas also stay in your head,” said Mark Beeman, professor of psychology at Northwestern University and coauthor of The Eureka Factor. Beeman, who specializes in the neurology of creative thinking, explained that for generating a sudden insight, problems need to be turned over in your mind. And if a notebook takes these thoughts out of your brain and onto paper, it’s counterproductive. Conversely, if the act of writing imprints them upon your synapses, or you are meticulous about revisiting your notes to examine