A few days ago, after giving a presentation at the University of Texas in Austin, one of the participants asked, “But Michelle, why do you call it the Joy Choice?
Awesome question. I’m glad you asked!
- The Joy Choice is freeing. Rejecting the all-or-nothing mindset is truly liberating. Letting go of perfection and embracing a more playful mindset allows us to release the non-optimal thinking that has hamstrung us in the past, constricted our options, and set most of us up to fail.
- The Joy Choice lets us finally succeed at lasting change. Every Joy Choice is a win because we have chosen the perfect imperfect option that lets us do something instead of nothing. (Research finds that this type of flexible, “good-enough” tactic is adaptive for staying the path.) The Joy Choice was designed to work with our messy lives, not in spite of them. Choosing to do something (anything!) toward our greater eating or exercise goal keeps us consistently moving forward on the path of lasting change.
- The Joy Choice helps us renew and reset. When we do any form of self-care, no matter how small, we are tending to our own emotional well-being and physical health, renewing and refueling ourselves to feel our very best. The Joy Choice invites us to see supporting our sense of well-being as worthy of our time and energy.
- The Joy Choice affirms our core sense of self and values. Any amount of self-care (even perfectly imperfect versions) allows us to be and do our best. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a senior research scholar at Clark University, couldn’t have put it better in his new theory about joy when he said that joy reflects the feeling that there is a near match between the current moment and our sense of identity.
So, every time we pick the Joy Choice, we are not just making a momentary decision that supports our greater intentional eating or exercise goals. We are actualizing who we truly are.
And THAT is why we call it the Joy Choice!
The Joy Choice launches one week from today!
Thanks so much to those who have pre-ordered The Joy Choice. If you pre-order (before April 26) you’ll be invited to participate in my free four-session book club + workbook. I’ve been designing this experience to be both thought-provoking and fun, so I hope you can join us.
My goal for the “Joy Choice” couldn’t be loftier: I aim to create a new story of behavior change that revolutionizes how people around the world think about their eating and exercise choices. This new story empowers us to replace all-or-nothing thinking with a self-affirming and fun approach to intentional eating and exercise decision-making that can survive the complexity and unpredictability of the real, far from ideal world.
Stay tuned for the exciting media coverage about The Joy Choice, coming soon.
Feel free to share this post with others who share your interest in the science-based how-to’s of creating lasting changes that can survive in the real world.
Copyright © Segar, Michelle.