Dec 14, 2010
A long-standing central desire of mine is to help my fellows live healthier, happier lives. I do my best to center my words, my work and my living on the theme of life enhancement, yet I am often surprised by how rarely people tend to act on what they know they need to do to live healthier, more balanced lives. A circuit breaker blows somewhere between recognition of the need for change and actualization of the change and the change isn’t made.
I recently came across a promising area of behavioral research called Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, professors of psychology at the University of Rochester, SDT is concerned with supporting our intrinsic tendencies to behave in effective and healthy ways. Isn’t that fascinating?
The SDT research is relevant to my work in the wellness field. My aim as co-founder of The Spa on Green Street, a destination day spa in Gainesville, Georgia, was to create a setting that could not only inspire, but facilitate the lifestyle changes necessary to healthier living. Easier said than done. Believe me. Helping people to follow through on changes that they know they need to make, even in the face of debilitating illness or even death, can be quite a challenge!
The University of Rochester’s website on SDT (http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/index.php) notes that the three psychological needs – autonomy (you are making your own choices), competence (you can get help and you have confidence in your ability to change) and relatedness (known as there is a meaningful relationship with a guide/health care practitioner who respects and understands you) - are either supported or thwarted by the social context in which you live, work and play.
The lifestyle changes that lead to improved health cannot be made in a vacuum. They must be made real time, in the middle of a typically chaotic and fast-paced life. The changes initially put pressure on you, on those who are within your immediate sphere of influence and the blowback is not always pretty. Spouses get upset (“Why do you have to include me?”), children revolt (“I’m not eating that? It’s your problem not mine!”) and the no-man’s land between taking the initial baby steps and the appearance of tangible, visible, notable evidence of forward movement is daunting, if not downright intimidating. Once there is evidence the process becomes easier, but until then, keep your head low and move as quickly and as diligently as you can!
Goals are necessary but rarely sufficient to compel change in most people. The same could be said about the looming threat or the likely repercussions of not doing something that needs to be done. Many of the medical practitioner clients of a homeopathic/botanical/nutritional company I work with, Energetix Corporation, will be the first to tell you that eliciting compliance is one of the greatest challenges they face in their practices. Patients get fired up at the start of a process, but making it all the way from Point A to Point B can be terribly frustrating for everyone involved.
SDT is seeking to isolate the elements that ultimately help people overcome the inertia of wrong function. Researching topics such as mindfulness, vitality and passion are helping people to align their goals and behaviors. An article in the LA Times earlier this year made note of the TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday) phenomenon (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/01/weekends-jobs-happiness-wellbeing.html), noting that people, no matter if they enjoy their jobs or not, tend to be happier on the weekends. Why? For the very reasons that the SDT researchers note. The question to me is how can we engineer environments – work, home, school, etc. – that effectively nourish these basic psychological needs?
You need the emotional wherewithal to follow through on the changes you know you need to make. You must let their karma run over your dogma, as it were, so that the intrinsic compulsions to health, to greatness, to the expression of genius can be aligned with the extrinsic forces that are at play in your world. And remember, no two people are the same. So an individualized, custom-tailored plan for you is much more likely to hit the mark and produce sustainable changes in your life.
I encourage you to look into the research being done on this topic and I look forward to hearing your comments.
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