The 80/20 rule
Is insight enough to create true, lasting change?
For nearly 15 years, I struggled with body image and weight issues. As my family would say, I was a bonafide health expert when it came to insights about optimal wellness and my own triggers. Yet none of that insight was enough to shift me from pain to peace when it came to food and body image.
True transformation requires 20% insight generation and 80% muscle building.
I recently came across this 20/80 statistic as part of the ongoing Positive Intelligence training I'm doing. It seems so simple and obvious. Yet, it’s what trips so many of us up when we’re trying to create a change.
It’s where I see many clients stumble over and over.
Here’s how it goes down: Client experiences a profound aha in a session where they become aware of how they stumble and the changes they want to create. We create an accountability plan with action items. Client leaves session energized and lit-up with purpose.
Next session, client is back in the same rut, they haven’t taken the actions because something got canceled or they didn’t feel like it or - insert excuse.
Clients who see the results and experience the change are the ones who are taking those incremental actions from session to session. They override the “I don’t wannas” because they are willing to be temporarily uncomfortable with the growing pains of taking action. They know that something has to change in order for something to change.
They are willing.
At first, we need insight to become willing.
In 12 Step Programs, everything begins by admitting that you have a problem, that you’re powerless over it and that your current ways of managing are not working.
You have to become willing to try a new way, a new system of managing.
A new operating system.
I believe that I have found the operating system to help bridge the insight-practice gap. It’s called PQ (Positive Intelligence) and I’m so excited to be sharing it with my clients and community. This simple and effective system is all about mental muscle training through PQ reps - a simple 10-second technique to shift brain activation from the negative “Saboteur” part of our brain to the positive “Sage” part.
Three key takeaways to share with you from my training program:
Mastery in anything requires constant and steady repetition. The problem is that we never get to do that because we’re trying to change too many things, and we don’t have a common operating system to unify those efforts. We get spread too thin.
The PQ core operating system enables us to treat the issues at root level rather than symptoms, as the Saboteurs and Sage Powers are at the root level. And we’re able to focus on muscle building rather than just insight, as there are only a few core muscles to boost, and we know exactly how to boost them.
The transformative impact of the operating system is in how it powers a hundred applications ranging from reducing stress and feeling happier in your job, to managing conflict, selling more persuasively, becoming more resilient in facing setbacks, collaborating more creatively in teams, saving your marriage from the Saboteur-to-Saboteur rot it has fallen into, or shifting from being a micromanaging parent to an empowering one.
Source: www.positiveintelligence.com/news/how-to-create-positive-change-that-lasts
As many of you know, I have been practicing mindfulness meditation for the last twenty years - it will always be at the core of how I coach and support my clients. The PQ program is the operating system which integrates the ancient wisdom of mindfulness meditation into a practical, science-based system towards results.
If this feels like the right next action for you, then let’s connect.
I’d love to include you in my upcoming group program: Six Weeks to a Positive Mind.