Harness Your Activation Energy

Last month I wrote a post on The Power of Positivity, as based on the book The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. I think this book is so hands-down amazing that I also want to use this month's post to share another powerful tidbit from it.

This month's post is centered around the concept of chapter six, "The 20-Second Rule", which is all about how to harness the power of activation energy to change your habits.

When trying to change a habit, whether it's creating a new good habit or ceasing a bad one, most of us default to trying to use our willpower. We say we'll eat more vegetables, exercise twice as much, drill our zills at every practice, or stick to a budget. And how will we do that? Um, well, by just willing ourselves to do it. Right. And how's that working for you? If it's anything like me, not very well. And while that approach may work for a short time, it will hardly ever work for the long-term. That's because the more you use your willpower, the more worn-out it gets. It's not a limitless supply, so your stores get depleted and before you know it, you run out. That's why so many New Year's resolutions are broken by February.

The effective way to change a habit, is to forget about willpower and instead use the power of activation energy. Cue super hero music. Activation energy is about the path of least resistance. Activation energy is about making it easy. Hallelujuah. It's inherent human nature that the easier something is, the more likely it is that we are going to do it. Conversely, the more energy it takes to do something, the less likely we are to muster the energy to make it happen.  I think the easiest way to quickly grasp the concept is with an illustration.

Say my goal is to practice my zills every evening. However, I keep my zills stored in a basket in the back of my closet, so each evening I have to go scrounge around in the basket to find them. Then once I have them, I realize my practice area is not big enough, so I have to move my coffee table out of the way so I have room to move around. When the space is finally big enough, I realize that I'm not sure what exactly to practice, so I decide I have to dig out a zills video and pop it into the DVD player. So by the time I actually start to play, I've already expended some 10+ minutes worth of energy getting setup without having even started on the goal itself. How likely am I to go through this lengthy process each evening? Not very. However, if my zills are sitting out, my practice area is clear, and my DVD is already in the player and I can just hit play and begin, I'm much more likely to actually practice my zills.

Make sense?

The power of activation energy can also be used to help stop negative habits as well. Say for example, I want to spend less time on social media. If I do the one simple step of uninstalling my social media apps from my phone, I've made it one step harder for me to get onto social media, and thus less likely more me to lose hours on Instagram or Pinterest, because now it takes more activation energy for me to do so.

So simple, but so genius! I highly recommend you read the whole book to get the detailed information on activation energy, as well as the other positive psychology topics covered in the book.

As always, I like to bring it back to the dance focus, so I'll throw out a couple ideas of how the power of activation energy could potentially be used to further your dance practice:

• Leave your zills or other props out so that they can easily be picked up and used. Out somewhere that's in front of a mirror is even better. Putting them where you usually put your TV remote or computer mouse, while the remote or mouse goes to the top of a tall shelf is the best.
• Keep your practice area clear of furniture, clutter, and other impediments to movement.
• Keep your practice DVD in the DVD player.
• Sign up and pre-pay for a class series. It takes energy to decide to go to class each week. If you make the decision once, then you don't have to use energy to re-make the decision each week. 
• If working on a costume, leave the costume and all your sewing supplies out on a table.
• Buy a tripod for your phone or video camera, figure out a good recording angle and height at the edge of your practice area, and leave it there so you can pop your device on it and press record at any point in time so you can get instant video feedback.
• If you aren't practicing because you're watching TV or spending time on the Internet, figure out what will make it harder for you to do those activities. Take the batteries out of the TV remote and put them in another room. Or get the Self Control app which will lock you out of social media after the time period you tell it. 
• Have all your belly dance related music in one folder, playlist, or organized system so you can easily locate it and hit the play button.
• Bookmark or utilize your other preferred online tagging method to store your favorite websites, videos, or other online resources for easy access, rather than trying to Google them again later.
• If trying to read a dance related book or magazine, leave the book out on your coffee table or next to your bed.

Those are just a few ideas. You know you best, so brainstorm what works best for you. Think easy. Think path of least resistance and watch yourself start to develop new habits. Power activated!

The Power of Positivity

I recently finished reading the book The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and I was really blown away by some of the studies and principles shared in this book. At its simplest, the message of this book is that happiness fuels success, and not the other way around. While that might not sound like a ground-breaking or life-changing statement at the outset, when you get in examine the implications of this, it actually is rather revolutionary. This statement is scientifically supported by mountains of evidence from the fields of positive psychology and neuroscience. While I highly recommend you read the entire book, I wanted to share on one principle that I thought applied to the realm of dance and performance.

One of the chapters I found most fascinating was the chapter called Falling Up. In short, this chapter discusses how, when faced with obstacles or failure, succumbing to helplessness keeps us down on the mat, while positive thinking, lifts us up. I'm sure we've all heard that one before, phrased in various ways. Think positive. Look on the bright side. The glass is half full. And so, on. But let's break it down even further. I want to share the same example that the author shared:

Imagine a scenario where you walk into a bank. You are one of 50 people in the bank. A team of bank robbers comes into the building. You are one of two people who gets shot. You are shot in the arm. The question is: Are you lucky or unlucky?

Some people might say that they are unlucky because they got shot while 48 other people did not. Some might say you are lucky because you didn't suffer a more serious injury, or perhaps even die. Regardless of which answer you came to, the point is that you invented a counterfact. You invented either a counterfact where you did not get shot or you invented a counterfact where you were more severely injured. As the author explains a "counterfact is an alternate scenario our brains create to help us evaluate and make sense of what really happened....Here is the crucial part: Both of the counterfacts are completely hypothetical. Because it's invented, we actually have the power in any given situation to consciously select a counterfact that makes us feel fortunate rather than helpless. And choosing a positive counterfact, besides simply making us feel better, sets ourselves up for the whole host of benefits to motivation and performance we now know accompanies a positive mindset."

Just let that sink in for a second. How powerful is that! Each and every day, each activity we engage in, each encounter we have, we have the power to decide if it's positive or negative, regardless of what actually happened. We are literally building and designing our own reality.

So how does this apply to dance? Anyone who's been a dancer or performer for any length of time has experienced ups and downs. Sometimes we get negative reviews, have a bad performance, don't land the gig we wanted, and so on. We can take those occurrences and let the negative mindset win over. We can tell ourselves, we aren't good enough, experienced enough, talented enough, or pretty enough. Or we can rewrite our message and our reality. Turn it around and be thankful for the performance opportunity, the learning experience, or that we are one step closer to our end goal.

Changing our internal dialogue is what the author calls "explanatory style". The author explains that, "Decades of subsequent study have since shown that explanatory style - how we choose to explain the nature of past events - has a crucial impact on our happiness and future success. People with an optimistic explanatory style interpret adversity as being local and temporary, while those with a pessimistic explanatory style see these events as more global and permanent. Their beliefs then directly affect their actions; the ones who believe the latter statement sink into helplessness and stop trying, while the ones who believe the former are spurred on to higher performance."

In other words, if you believe that your bad performance in which you slipped and fell was a learning experience and has put you one step closer to being a professional dancer, then you literally are one step closer to being a professional dancer. I know this can sound like pollyanna-ish euphemisms, But the effect of having a positive explanatory style has been measured in numerous studies and business results. In a study at MetLife, salespeople with optimistic explanatory style sold 88% more insurance then those with pessimistic explanatory style!

As mentioned, I highly recommend reading this book cover to cover, because the author has so many more interesting scientifically-based facts and tips that you can incorporate into your life and mindset. You have the power to shape your future and your success, and it starts with your thoughts. Change your internal monologue to open new doors of opportunity and happiness.