New and improved

It’s not exercise, it’s ecstasy. (Image by David Mark)

When my sister was a little, she resisted taking naps.

So when my dad would start moving things in that direction, she would protest vehemently. “I don’t want to take a nap!”

And he’d say, “No, no. We’re not going to take a nap. We’re going to take a Nip Nap.”

A Nip Nap wasn’t that different from a nap. They lay down together on the living room floor. But it was enough different that she was willing to give it a try. Her resistance thus lowered, she was soon out cold.

I think about this often. The lessons are many for dealing with high-achieving adults, not just strong-willed toddlers. I relate it to habits we struggle to establish and the projects we get stuck on. Sometimes, changing the way we label something can help us break out of those patterns.

For example, I’m rarely going to want to “work out.” But I’m up for walking, hiking, or tennis.

When I taught music lessons, I encouraged students to “play your songs at home,” not “practice your instrument.”

Another example: A friend has been wanting to create a course for years. He can decide to scrap that course and do a completely new course. Then, he would have a course he’s been working on for a few days instead of one that he’s been stalling on for years. It doesn’t matter that what will be in the course is pretty much the same as what he was hoping to put into the other one. It’s not a nap, it’s a Nip Nap.

A company can make minor changes to the formulation of a product or even to its packaging and make the claim that it is “New and improved!” It’s basically the same thing, but someone might buy it, lured by those magic words. And they might even find that their subjective experience of the product is better than it was before, even if it is objectively identical.

Placebos work, even when we know they’re placebos. Tricking ourselves can help us to change our actions even when we know that we’re tricking ourselves. If it makes us feel better and yields better results, why not go with it?

We can come up with “new and improved” versions of old things anytime we want. The only person we have to convince is ourselves, and we are easily swayed. Change the language around a thing, and watch the energy around it transform.

My friend Eric says that he likes to shift from “I have to” to “I get to.” A TikTok acquaintance says that she tells herself that she’s organizing her kitchen instead of cleaning it. There are so many ways that we make difficult circumstances easier to bear and boring tasks more palatable with the way that we talk about them (and therefore, think about them).

When I feel bad about not doing a thing, I get further from being willing to do it. If I can make myself feel better — even if that’s telling myself a childish story or engaging in magical thinking — I will. And then, I might just be willing to do the thing.

How might you apply this concept to something in your life? Where might you turn a nap into a Nip Nap?