The Undertow is my term for the mysterious force that sabotages our best efforts when we're just on the edge of victory. The awful truth is that most of our efforts at self-reform, even those that meet with great initial success, will fail within two years, and send us back where we started.
Something keeps sucking us back in.
You stay on your diet and lose 40 pounds, but then you have a bad week and you're doomed. Within just a few months you put back on all the weight you struggled so hard to lose, and you've added evidence to your belief that you're hopeless.
We can't overcome this undertow by doing only what we already know how to do; we have to change some basic assumptions about ourselves and modify some habits that we don't yet understand are part of the problem.
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[The Good News:] -- Neuroscientists have now shown that if we simply practice good habits, our brains will grow and change in response, with the result that these good habits become easier and easier.
When we do anything repeatedly, with focused attention, our nerve cells will physically grow new connections between, say, nerve center A (go to the gym) and nerve center B (stay at the gym until your workout is done). Nerves A and B develop a stronger connection with more transmitting and receiving points, and going to do our workout becomes a habit with a physical embodiment in the brain.
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
We forget our aches and pains and distractions, and do it. And every time we do it, we make it easier to do tomorrow.
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