The right conditions for rapid transformation
It takes about 40 weeks for a baby to grow from a single cell, roughly six weeks for a shorn sheep to grow back a wool coat sufficient to keep itself warm, and a little more than 27 days for the moon to complete its orbit around the earth.
These things can’t be rushed — we wouldn’t even try. However, there are other timelines we take for granted that are not as firm as we think.
For instance, does it have to take thirteen years (kindergarten through twelfth grade) for a person to be ready for college and adulthood? A decade of therapy to recover from your parents’ divorce? Forty years to save for retirement?
When we expect things to take a long time, they will. Parkinson’s law states that the time it takes to do something will expand to fill the time allotted for it.
And when we have no clear timeline or deadline, the task at hand may well take forever. We’ll go to our grave with the work undone.
If we understand this aspect of human nature, we can use it to our advantage. We can trick ourselves into rapid transformation by questioning our assumptions and imposing new timelines.
Consider that it takes 15 to 20 minutes to bake a pizza in a typical oven — but it takes only about two minutes in a wood-fired brick oven. A wood-fired brick oven is able to safely reach a much higher temperature, yielding the perfect chewy-but-crisp Neapolitan-style dough in a fraction of the time.
What can we do to “turn up the temperature,” so to speak, to change our own mental processes?
The first thing we need is belief. It sounds like a Disney movie, but it’s true: If you don’t believe that what you’re trying to do (like covering two years of math in three months) is possible, you’re never going to be able to do it.
The second thing is that we need to be willing. Transformation doesn’t have to take a long time, but it isn’t easy. We have to want to change. We have to be open to giving up the things that we’re holding onto just because they are familiar.
Third, we must let go of why. We can spend years going over how we got to be the way we are — but it’s not strictly necessary in order to create change. We don’t have to fix the plumbing in the old house. Instead, we can bulldoze the house and build a new one (with a new plumbing contractor).
Fourth, we’ve got to drop our preconceptions and focus on results. A great solution might feel like a cop-out if you’re used to doing things the hard way. But if it gets you where you want to be, use it! Want to get great advice from a famous mentor? Read her book and watch her TED Talk. Want to look ten pounds thinner for an event tomorrow? Put on a pair of high heels. Want to be the president of an organization? Start your own. If you are attached to a specific thing happening in a specific way, it will be a lot harder to see an easier route to the same result.
Fifth, we can achieve transformation by seeking guidance. There are so many ways to do this, from hiring a tutor or coach to taking a course to praying to reading articles online. If you’re doing something that others have done, there is a path you can follow; if you are doing something new, you can follow the path of others who have done something new!
If you…
believe in your ability to do what you’ve set out to do;
are willing to do the work;
have dropped the baggage that keeps you staying the way you are;
have let go of thinking you know how it’s supposed to go; and
are gathering information and support;
…then you are on the right track!
You will be amazed at how quickly you can make things happen for yourself. You’ll find the focus, clarity, and encouragement to do things you never thought you would be able to do, faster than you ever thought possible.