The Britney Spears Buzz Cut: Secrets of Personal Growth
As I write, the world is still waiting to find out why Britney Spears shaved her head and let her long flowing locks fall to the salon floor. While I don’t have any insight into Britney’s reasoning for what is being viewed by the media as a troubling indication of her instability, I can comment on how something as simple a shaving ones head can serve as the much needed spark for lasting personal change.
Few things contribute to what we will accomplish in life, or not, as much as our identity. When someone has smoked for 30 years tells me, “I haven’t smoked for 3 months now.” I’ll probe a little deeper, perhaps even asking “how much longer before you smoke again?” If they tell me, “Oh, I’m a non-smoker….I was a smoker for 30 years, but I’m a non-smoker now, so never, ever again!” then I know they have made the much needed identity shift that will all but guarantee their continued success. It’s one thing to stop a behavior; it’s an entirely different “animal” though when you change “who” you are, and how you perceive yourself.
Behind nearly every lasting change, upon closer examination you’ll find an identity shift that serves as the glue that holds the transformation together. Very few people have the tenacity required to maintain behavioral changes made without the rock solid foundation offered by a change in identity.
Have you ever wondered why new inductees in the armed forces have their heads shaved? It’s really very simple; a persons chosen hair style has literally been “fused” with their identity. This is why women who lose their hair while undergoing chemotherapy often describe the hair loss as the worst part of the treatment. This also explains why millions of men spend more on products like Rogaine each month than they put into their retirement account.
When the Army shears the young recruits like so many sheep in the spring, they have taken a crucial step in reshaping how these young men and women see themselves; when there are no longer individual hairstyles, and everyone looks the same, an identity “vacuum” is created. It’s much easier for the Army to install the beliefs needed to make an obedient soldier when they don’t have to wrestle with an identity that may or may not be “accepting” of the new values and guiding principles offered by the military.
As strange as it sounds at first, if your goal is to lose weight for example, rather than focusing on forcing yourself to eat less and exercise more, you may want to first “become” the kind of person who eats only healthy foods and who can’t imagine a day ending before you’ve exercised. When you begin by first adopting the identity of a person who easily and naturally eats well and exercises daily, you’ll find that doing those things will soon seem like second nature.
How do you do that? We can learn a great deal by looking at award winning actors like one of my favorites, Robert DeNiro. When preparing for a role in an upcoming film, actors and actresses will step completely into the character they will be portraying. In fact, some of them “become” their character so fully, that they often have difficulties “breaking character” and require rather intense debriefings to get back to “themselves” once the film has been finished. What would happen if they kept up this “pretending” indefinitely? The time would arrive, when they would find they had crossed the point of no return; they’d no longer identify with many of the beliefs and values that had served as their guide posts for most of their life.
With a new identity comes new patterns of thinking, new patterns of behaving, and ultimately new and different results. Will the changes that result from Britney having shaved her head be in her best interest? We can only wait and see. One thing is certain though, with such a radical shift in her “look” she’ll no doubt experience new thoughts, new feelings, and in the end, new behaviors.
One final thought; if you find yourself a bit unsettled by the word “pretending” as a way of changing your identity, I invite you to consider the following. At some point in your youth, perhaps sometime in Junior High School, you were accepted into a certain social group. It might have been the “Jocks”, the “Brainiac’s”, the “Geeks” or some other group that you found comfort being a member of. There were certain things the “cool” people in those groups did and said, and because you wanted to be accepted by the others, you too, started to do those things. At first you were pretending, but eventually, you were no longer making the conscious choice to behave that way; the behaviors had become habitual unconscious behaviors.
What would happen if you “pretended” that you were a consistent investor for a year? What would happen if you pretended you were a wonderful public speaker for 18 months? Isn’t it true that there’s a part of you that can already sense the answer to those questions? Follow that inner voice, and build the identity that will support the achievement of any worthwhile goal.
© Copyright 2007, Vincent Harris-All Rights Reserved.
Vincent Harris is a professional speaker, trainer, and consultant. He is an expert on the new science of happiness, positive psychology, and teaches others how to become the kind of speaker that can leave the audience spellbound. Join his Free weekly Newsletter today, a $97 value and a Free Special Report, ” Stop Offending Other’s Unconsciously, and Win Them Over in Record Time!” Just visit http://www.successpath.info/Consultations.html
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