Happy Sunday!
And welcome to today's edition of 'Conscious living with Purnima'. In today's post I share with you some insights on why we are repeatedly lured by short term fixes. Let me know if you relate.
✨ A New Body in 30 Days
✨ 30 Day Transformation Challenge
✨ Lose weight in 2 weeks in a fun way
I am sure you have been exposed to these kind of marketing messages. Just reading the headline can have the adrenaline rushing for most of us. In the message is the promise of a feeling we are longing to feel. We are quick to enroll for such a program. All geared up for action.
The more stringent and rigorous the plan the better. We can use all of our self-control and make that end result happen so as to quickly 'feel the feeling'. We care a lot about the month end transformation. What happens after 6 months or 1 year is nowhere in our consciousness.
Marketers have figured this psychology of individuals and use it to their advantage with claims that hit us at the right spot. And we fall for it.
While we get a chance to feel the feeling and claim, 'we got the result', we are unable to sustain it. Pretty soon we are back to our old ways. Only to look for a similar challenge once again.
What has happened is that we haven't really learnt ‘how to change’.
I run 30-day health challenges too. The objective of which is mostly to increase self-awareness. To be upfront, they are very boring. Take the nutrition challenge I am running this month for instance. In the challenge, I don't make the participants do anything drastic. I am sure I disappoint those who expect to get rid of all the junk food in their house on day 1 and be sugar free for the rest. Instead, all I ask them to do is keep a written log of what they are eating, plan their meal a day in advance, eat mindfully or journal their tendencies around food. Those that wholeheartedly participate end up learning something more about themselves.
What makes the simple difficult in practice is that it asks for a greater degree of introspection and digging into the root cause of our behaviour. If we really want to make a long-lasting change then we need to start studying ourselves. Dig deeper into our mindsets and habits, our environmental influences. We may sometimes come to realise that our current environment does not support creating a sustainable change. But we need to acknowledge this so we can start altering our environment bit by bit.
If you want the present to be different from the past, then study the past - Baruch Spinoza
To give you an example, if you are unable to eat mindfully then instead of writing off the practice as something you cannot do consider examining the barriers you face to mindful eating. Maybe you are unable to take your mind off your task list, maybe you are prone to distractions. We do live in a highly distracted world, our minds constantly stimulated or craving for stimulation. A social media/ gadget fast (staying away from media consumption on the internet & mobile phone) an hour before your mealtime could perhaps help to bring your attention to the meal on your plate. Help you slow down, chew better and manage your portions.
Questioning our behaviour, examining the barriers and exploring alternative approaches to breaking those barriers is how we truly learn and not by following a pre-existing plan put forth by someone else. The latter is a short-term fix and the former a quest for seeking a long-term solution. The former takes time and patience. Exactly what we don't have in this fast paced, quick results-oriented world.
And so, in this world, the lure of the short-term fix will always be difficult to resist. And we will be repeatedly played at in the hands of the marketers and advertisers. Unless of course we choose to see the truth.
As always, coming with an interesting topic and adding the flavour of being consistent and an objective of long term perspective. Loved it.