{"id":3170,"date":"2013-08-03T16:30:08","date_gmt":"2013-08-03T16:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=3170"},"modified":"2013-08-03T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2013-08-03T16:30:08","slug":"the-five-and-two-improvement-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=3170","title":{"rendered":"The Five-and-Two Improvement Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fish!\"<\/a>One of the reasons that many people find improvement difficult is because they are told that they will undergo a “transformational” change and they will have a “Road-To-Damascus Moment” when the “penny drops” and the “light bulb goes on”.<\/p>\n

This is rubbish advice.<\/p>\n

\n

The unstated implication is that “and if you do not then there is something wrong with you<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

There is no Improvementologist I know who ever had a massive “ah ha” moment – the insight was gained gradually, bit-by-bit, over a long period of time.<\/p>\n

And that is for a good reason.<\/p>\n

We are all very weak-willed.<\/p>\n

We all very easily slip back into Victim role, and I’m Not OK or They’re not OK thinking.\u00a0 Especially when bad news is so plentiful and so cheap.<\/p>\n

The “Eureka Mantra”\u00a0 does not work with trying to improve physical health by losing weight so why should it work for anything else?\u00a0 Diets do not work – if they did we would all be a healthy weight.<\/p>\n

A few months ago I ran an experiment – to see if I could lose a significant amount of weight without much effort – certainly without doing any extra exercise.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 By “not burning the toast” on the first place. By ingesting fewer carbs.<\/p>\n

That experiment has shown it is possible – I have the evidence – hard facts not just fuzzy feelings.<\/p>\n

The most surprising lesson was that all I had to do was to reduce carb intake for two days a week. I just skipped the sugar, biscuits, bread, potatoes, crisps etc for two days a week. It was not difficult. In fact it was so easy I am not surprised that the Five-and-Two weight reduction plan is going viral.<\/p>\n

So I wonder what would happen if we try the same experiment for other areas of improvement – psychological.\u00a0 What if we just change the “diet” from “carbs” to “cants”.\u00a0 What if for two days a week we just restrict our “cant” intake.\u00a0 What if we turn down the volume of our inner voice that tells us what we cant do?\u00a0 What if we just ignore the people whose response to every improvement suggestion is “yes …but”?\u00a0 What if we just do this and measure what happens?<\/p>\n

For only two days a week though.<\/p>\n

I’m not interested in being suddenly transformed – a gradual metamorphosis is OK by me.\u00a0 My intuition is that it will be important to maintain a normal diet of whining and denying for the other five days – because I need variation and I do seem to get pleasure from wallowing in my own toxic emotional swamp.<\/p>\n

That sounds doable.<\/p>\n

I could probably maintain a “negative thought filter” for two days a week – and then return to my curmudgeonly comfort zone for the other five.<\/p>\n

I’ll need to choose which days wisely though …\u00a0 and I had better wear a special hat, tie or badge that indicates which mode I am in – a pessimistic Black Hat five days a week and an optimistic Yellow Hat for the other two perhaps.<\/p>\n

I wonder if anyone will notice?<\/p>\n

And the idea of choosing your attitude for a day reminds me of a little book called FISH!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the reasons that many people find improvement difficult is because they are told that they will undergo a “transformational” change and they will have a “Road-To-Damascus Moment” when the “penny drops” and the “light bulb goes on”. This is rubbish advice. The unstated implication is that “and if you do not then there … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Five-and-Two Improvement Plan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,35,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improvementology","category-reflections","category-victimosis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}