oh how i love this article

I know this Fast Company article about change has already made it's run 'round the internets. But it is such a good article that I had to dig it up and read it again. And lucky you, I picked out the good bits and posted them here to save you all the hard work of reading it yourself.

The article starts with the statistic that 90% of people who undergo coronary bypass surgery do not change their lifestyles after the operation, even though they are aware that the results of not doing so can be fatal. Why?

The conventional wisdom says that crisis is a powerful motivator for change. But severe heart disease is among the most serious of personal crises, and it doesn't motivate -- at least not nearly enough. Nor does giving people accurate analyses and factual information about their situations. What works? Why, in general, is change so incredibly difficult for people? What is it about how our brains are wired that resists change so tenaciously? Why do we fight even what we know to be in our own vital interests?

Kotter has hit on a crucial insight. "Behavior change happens mostly by speaking to people's feelings," he says.

Ding ding ding! Emotions. But not any emotion will do. Fear happens to fail badly at motivating. Enter Dr. Ornish:

Doctors had been trying to motivate patients mainly with the fear of death, he says, and that simply wasn't working. For a few weeks after a heart attack, patients were scared enough to do whatever their doctors said. But death was just too frightening to think about, so their denial would return, and they'd go back to their old ways.

The patients lived the way they did as a day-to-day strategy for coping with their emotional troubles. "Telling people who are lonely and depressed that they're going to live longer if they quit smoking or change their diet and lifestyle is not that motivating," Ornish says. "Who wants to live longer when you're in chronic emotional pain?"

So instead of trying to motivate them with the "fear of dying," Ornish reframes the issue. He inspires a new vision of the "joy of living" -- convincing them they can feel better, not just live longer. That means enjoying the things that make daily life pleasurable, like making love or even taking long walks without the pain caused by their disease. "Joy is a more powerful motivator than fear," he says.

Joy and visioning and reframing, oh my. And how about throwing in some stories that have resonance:

Getting people to exchange one frame for another is tough even when you're working one-on-one, but it's especially hard to do for large groups of people. Howard Gardner, a cognitive scientist, MacArthur Fellow "genius" award winner, and professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, has looked at what works most effectively for heads of state and corporate CEOs. "When one is addressing a diverse or heterogeneous audience," he says, "the story must be simple, easy to identify with, emotionally resonant, and evocative of positive experiences."

I love all that stuff - it's what I've been talking a lot about on this blog and was a big part of my contemplation/preparation stage. I could read books and article about the psychology of change forever. But there are a couple of new bits that I really wanted to highlight in this article- two other big factors in change are early results and support. First on results:

Reframing alone isn't enough, of course. That's where Dr. Ornish's other astonishing insight comes in. Paradoxically, he found that radical, sweeping, comprehensive changes are often easier for people than small, incremental ones. For example, he says that people who make moderate changes in their diets get the worst of both worlds: They feel deprived and hungry because they aren't eating everything they want, but they aren't making big enough changes to quickly see an improvement in how they feel, or in measurements such as weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol. But the heart patients who went on Ornish's tough, radical program saw quick, dramatic results, reporting a 91% decrease in frequency of chest pain in the first month. "These rapid improvements are a powerful motivator," he says. "When people who have had so much chest pain that they can't work, or make love, or even walk across the street without intense suffering find that they are able to do all of those things without pain in only a few weeks, then they often say, 'These are choices worth making.' "

And the one I just started implementing for myself - building a support group:

Even when leaders have reframed the issues brilliantly, it's still vital to give people the multifaceted support they need. That's a big reason why 90% of heart patients can't change their lifestyles but 77% of Ornish's patients could -- because he buttressed them with weekly support groups with other patients, as well as attention from dieticians, psychologists, nurses, and yoga and meditation instructors.

So, I activated my account at Traineo and sent out requests to people I trust and and whose support I would find valuable, asking them to be my "motivators" - as Traineo calls them. I have belonged to other weight loss programs in the past that had an element of support - namely Weight Watchers - but I didn't find the support in that situation (they were all strangers to me, basically) meaningful or personal enough to matter to me. I'm not sure Traineo is going to be the best method of support, either - but I like the feel of it and I'm anxious to try it out.