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Observe Yourself for “30 Days and Three Seconds” Before Making a Change

10 May 2016

Allison read The Solution to Maintaining a Budget Is Awareness by Carl Richards and believes his “30 Days and Three Seconds” experiment can help set the foundation for any change in personal behavior.

Tags: allison read, balance, change, mindfulness

Carl Richards is "The Sketch Guy" in The New York Times Your Money section. Every Monday you can read about his simple, smart, and self-compassionate approach to financial planning and see a sketch on a napkin that supports his suggestions each week. Last year, I blogged about his advice in The Wrong Place and Time to Have a Money Conversation. While his focus was on financial discussions, I found his wisdom to be applicable to any difficult conversation. (You should never, ever talk about something complicated when you're in the mental basement.)

In his 25 April 2016 article, The Solution to Maintaining a Budget Is Awareness, Richards tackles the tough conversation people need to have with themselves about spending habits. Once again, Richards makes a suggestion that I believe can help people in many aspects of their lives.

Rather than scolding yourself for overspending or trying to implement a rigid set of budget management solutions, Richards suggests starting with self-awareness. The “30 Days and Three Seconds” experiment requires only that you notice each purchase you make for three seconds by saying to yourself, “Isn’t that interesting?” Richards doesn’t want you to judge the purchase, waste time feeling guilty, or try to change your behavior in the moment. Rather, he simply asked his readers to notice each transaction and then send him an email about what they learned after watching themselves for 30 days. Richards will share his findings on 13 June 2016.

While Richards never uses the word “mindfulness” in his article, that’s really what he’s encouraging. I like how Dan Harris, the co-anchor of ABC News’ Nightline, explains mindfulness in his book 10% Happier. (This book will definitely be the subject of one of my future blog posts as I’m thoroughly enjoying every word of it.)

As a student of Buddhism, Harris says, “In a nutshell, mindfulness is the ability to recognize what is happening in your mind right now—anger, jealousy, sadness, the pain of a stubbed toe, whatever—without getting carried away by it.” (Harris also explains that he initially found that idea to be impossible, but that after many years he learned how to actually achieve mindfulness at least some of the time.)

I think Richards’ mindfulness experiment could be useful to conduct before embarking on any change. The next time a client talks with me about how to achieve a new performance goal at work, communicate more effectively, lose weight, change sleep patterns, make more time for loved ones, etc., I’ll suggest he spend time watching himself first. When I finish teaching any of our courses, I always encourage clients to observe themselves first and make changes slowly so that they don’t pull too many levers at once. While I don’t think a month of nonjudgmental observation is needed before making all personal behavior changes, I do think it could be one of the missing links when it comes to the toughest changes that seem to always be out of reach.



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