The Simple Solution: Water-Walk-Talk-Rest

The psychologist George Kelly used an ingenious method to help people change. People would come to him and he would help them to write a brief description of themselves and their habitual behaviors. At the end of the first session, satisfied that the profile accurately described the person as they currently are (and as they have been most of their life), he would instruct them to now "Go and be this person for the next two weeks, then come back and tell me what it was like." Unsure, and perhaps a bit miffed, Kelly's patient would go forth and behave the same as her or she always had, and then, presumably, return to his office and state: "It was just the way it has always been!"

"Precisely," he might have said. "If you don't change your behaviors and attitudes, nothing else is going to change. Keep doing what you're doing, and you'll keep getting what you're getting." Then he would review the original written profile with the patient, and this time they would gently modify the behaviors and attitudes. Instead of writing, "I hate to wait in long lines," he might replace that statement with "I use long lines as an opportunity to practice patience." Instead of, "I always get seconds of dessert, if I can get away with it," he might suggest, "I take extra helpings of vegetables with my dinner." Instead of "I can't state stupid, thoughtless people," he might suggest, "I recognize that not everyone is as skilled as everyone else." Then, he would say, "Now go out and be that person for two weeks and come back and tell me what it was like."

After two weeks, the patients returned and usually thanked Dr. Kelly effusively for all his help. They saw the difference between the "script" they had been following previously and the new, edited script that he had helped them to develop. And with just those few changes, everything seemed somehow much easier and they felt much happier. "Wait," Kelly would say at this point. "You're not done." Then he would pick a random "second draft" from his files, a copy of a life script that some former patient had modified with his help. "Here," he would say. "Now go out and be this person for two weeks!"

What Kelly wanted his patients to learn was that they were not limited to making modest changes around the edges of their personality, but that could, if they dared, be whoever they wanted to be. At the same time, he was teaching them that who they have been is no more or less than exactly who they have chosen to be all those years.

With the Fourth of July almost upon us, it is probably safe to say that all of your New Years Resolutions will have fallen by the wayside by now. Most resolutions essentially reflect the desire to be happier and healthier, but for some reason they usually fail. Maybe because people create their own resolutions? Or maybe because the resolutions usually don't have a time limit, and extend onwards into infinity? Why not take another swing at changing your life? But, this time, only do it for a prescribed period of time.

To feel what real change is like, try making these changes to your life over a specified period of time. I recommend starting with 4 days, just to show that you can do it, and then at that point consciously choosing to either stop, or to extend for 10 days. At the 10 day mark, you can choose to extend to 40 days, but after that, stop. If the new habits are working for you, the best of them should have stuck by that time, and the ones that help less will fade away.

So, far the next four days (96 hours), try this:

1. Drink only water.

No soda. No alcohol. No coffee. No tea. just water. Those of you addicted to sugar might find this unpleasant. Those of you addicted to caffeine might find this brutal (I recommend tapering so as to avoid the headaches and fatigue associated with caffeine withdrawal). For those of you addicted to alcohol, this could actually be deadly (alcohol withdrawal can cause seizures), so again, no sudden stopping, but gradual tapering only.

It is remarkable how simplifying this one change can be, even if no changes to food intake are made. What do you want to drink? Just water, thanks. And don't worry about that morning coffee, because we're going to address that later.

2. Walk one hour a day.

Sedentary lifestyles contribute to the deaths of millions of people every year. A sedentary lifestyle can also be mentally stultifying. The biologist Charles Darwin and the poet William Wordsworth got their best ideas when they were taking one of their long daily walks. Rather than count steps, count minutes. Here's an easy way to start: 1) Find a pleasant and safe place to walk; 2) Walk for 15 minutes in one direction; 3) Turn around and walk back to where you started; 4) Do the same thing again later in the day. You don't have to do the walk at once, and its possible that you might not be able to physically walk for an hour at first (please check with your physician before starting any exercise routine). But you can walk for 15 minutes before work, 15 minutes at lunch, 15 minutes after you get off work, and 15 minutes after dinner. The trick is to get moving and get started.

3. Talk with other people.

Actually talk. Don't send a text; call and talk. Don't just sit together in front of the television; talk. Remember that old friend you haven't heard from in a while? Call her. Social media fools us into thinking that we are in touch with people even when we haven't heard their voices in years. Call. Better yet, visit. You don't have to make new friends (but it wouldn't hurt), but you do need to revitalize your relationships with the people in your life. Ask them questions. Pay them compliments. Tell them how you're feeling about something. You might find that drastically reducing the time you spend on social media, the internet, and watching videos or televisions will help you achieve this change. There's nothing wrong with social media, video games, etc., per se, but if you are engaging in them, you are not really engaging with other people.

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4. Rest.

Here's a suggestion. Find out when the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning. Set an alarm for that time. Then set another alarm for 8.5 hours before that time. That's your "I've got to go the bed" alarm. So if the sun rises at six a.m., then at 9:30 p.m., your alarm will tell you that it is time to head to bed. Shut the t.v. off, close the laptop, put your phone on Do Not Disturb and put it on a charger (preferable outside of your bedroom). You can read for a little while but the goal is to be asleep by 10 p.m. Even if you don't fall asleep by then, be sure to wake up at dawn and to avoid napping during the day. It will be a lot easier to fall asleep the second night.

So that's it: Water, Walking, Talking, and Rest. Easy, huh?

Well, I bet you can't do it. I bet you won't even try to do it. You are so heavily invested in being the same person you have always been that even simple, and time-limited, changes like this probably seem threatening. You might not want to find out just how much you depend on caffeine and alcohol. You know that if you are outside walking you can't be inside, playing with your phone and having snacks. You also might be afraid of the thoughts that might come into your head if you walked silently for an hour in nature, without earbuds stuck in. You might not want to hear want the people around you have to say, or you might fear that if you really talked to them they might not like you. If you weren't so tired all the time, you might not have a convenient excuse for being so irritable with people.

So, try it if you dare. A four-day fast. Water, Walking, Talking, and Rest. If you feel better after four days, then try to go for 10. If you feel better at 10, you can go for 40. And if you can do that, what else could you do?