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—————- The next find out more meeting for our March programme is on Tuesday 23rd February which is in [cntdwn todate=”31 March 2020 23:59″ timeoff=”0″ showhours=”0″ showmins=”0″ pretext=””] Check myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting to find out more, see what the meeting involves and, potentially, take that next step to transforming your life and body 🙂 ———————-
In 1973, a crack commando “unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted………….
No, wait.
Sorry.
I’ve got mixed up there.
That was 1972.
In 1973 John Darley and Daniel Batson at Princeton University conducted what became know as “From Jerusalem to Jericho: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behaviour”.
Inspired by the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ they wanted to test how much people’s willingness to help a stranger in need was affected by the situation they were in.
After all, we all like to think we’d help someone in distress that we came across, don’t we?
In there test, students were sent to another room across campus where they would have to pass down and alley in which a plant was posing a man slumped in a doorway, moaning and coughing.
Amongst other variables they tested how people’s willingness to stop and offer help was affected by perceived time pressure.
One group was told they needed to get there immediately and that they were late already.
The second told that by the time they got there it would be time to go.
The third group that there was plenty of time and they might have to wait a couple of minutes at the other end.
63% of the last group stopped to help the stranger in distress.
45% of the middle group.
And only 10% of the first ones.
Which just goes to show how much our choices and behaviours can be affected by external situations.
Particularity perceived time pressure.
And less by our beliefs than we might like to think.
And we’re the same in other areas of life.
We fully intend to “eat better”.
But things get busy at work.
We have all sorts of thing to sort before and after – the kids, the house, yet more work, etc.
And we quickly revert back to what we were doing before.
“I don’t have time for this” we tell ourselves.
And I get that.
Life is busy.
Full on.
It’s human nature to respond the way we do.
So trying to use willpower to make a different choice perhaps isn’t the best approach.
It’ll only get us so far.
Just like the students in this test made the ‘better’ choice when less time pressured…………
We will too.
Making as many of those decisions when we have that little more time makes it that bit easier.
Easy?
Maybe not.
But easier.
And, perhaps, easy enough.
Putting some thought into our food plans for the week when we have a little more time.
Maybe a Sunday night.
Maybe some other time.
Maybe prepping a few things.
Maybe ordering some stuff.
Maybe planning our workouts and making sure everything we need is ready for them.
Maybe planning some of the rest of the week to protect these workouts and some of our food choices.
Everyone’s situation will be different.
But we’ll all have time pressured ‘windows’ where the less good choices are more likely to be made.
And we’ll all have periods where it’s a little easier to make some of those better decisions in advance (maybe now is a good time for you, or a friend, to finally stop putting it off and take this next step………. –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting).
It’s up to us to find them and do that!
Much love,
Jon ‘A Team innit?’ Hall
