50 Ways to Fix Your Life
From small tinkers that can improve your life to major transformations that might save it, experts weigh in on how to make a new you in 2005
Americans have long been captivated by the notion of self-improvement--none more so than Benjamin Franklin. An accomplished printer, author, postmaster, scientist, inventor, and diplomat who taught himself to speak five languages, this Founding Father never stopped striving to change for the better. At the tender age of 79, he "conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection," describing 13 virtues to aim for--temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquillity, chastity, and humility--and an intricate system for charting his progress in each. "Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation," he writes in his Autobiography. "Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."
Today, self-help is not just a way of life--it's practically a national obsession. There are 7,500 books on the topic on amazon.com alone, covering just about every imaginable bad habit or dilemma, from How to Make Anyone Fall in Love With You and Positive Magic: Occult Self-Help to The Trick to Money Is Having Some! and Change Your Underwear--Change Your Life . Flip on the television and you can't avoid the latest spate of reality shows, which pledge to help everyday Joes and Janes remake their bodies, homes, careers, and relationships over the course of an hourlong episode or, at most, a season--all for their health, wealth, and happiness and, of course, your personal viewing pleasure.
Such offerings "appeal to the deeply felt American idea of 'before and after,' " says Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University in New York, who points out the underlying similarities between Franklin and, say, Dr. Phil. "If you were born a peasant in a medieval village, you knew who you were and it was very hard to change that, but here there is fluidity of class, and entire industries and program types pop up that reflect the ultimate optimism that really anybody can be a 'swan' and completely turn [his or her] life around."
Time to change. The hard truth is that lasting change doesn't usually happen in a single TV season. In reality, of the 40 to 45 percent of people who will make New Year's resolutions come January--be it to quit smoking, start flossing, declutter, or finally plan for retirement--fewer than half will succeed within six months, according to John Norcross, professor of psychology at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and coauthor of Changing for Good. But while many of us struggle to better ourselves in these various ways, always seeming to fall short, somehow, and to stay mired in destructive routines, the fact is that when someone makes a serious commitment to transform his or her life, it is possible. Norcross, who has been studying the subject for over 25 years, says that 70 to 80 percent of those who actively attempt a switch are ultimately successful, though it may take two, five, 10 tries or more. "Once people understand that change is a process--a developmental progression with distinct steps to move through--then our capacity to alter behavior is quite impressive," he says. "It is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash."
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