Ben Fletcher at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom devised a study to get people to break their usual habits. Each day the subjects picked a different option from poles of contrasting behaviors -- lively/quiet, introvert/extrovert, reactive/proactive -- and behaved according to this assignment. So an introverted person, for example, would act as an extrovert for an entire day. Additionally, twice weekly, they had to stretch to behave in a way outside their usual life pattern - eating or reading something they would never have done. rigid boxes

What do you think was the biggest change in the group?

The remarkable finding was that after four months, the subjects had lost an average of eleven pounds. And six months later, almost all had kept the weight off; some continued to lose weight.
This was not a diet, but a study focusing on change and its impact.

The rationale: requiring people to change routine behavior makes them actually think about decisions rather than habitually choosing a default mode without consideration. This is story busting in an indirect way. In having to actually process decisions actively, they exercised their choice and decision-making abilities, extending to other choices such as what to eat, and what not to. Once becoming aware of actively making choices, they could decide what's in their best interest, what furthers their stories. And what doesn't.

The Proverbial "Box"

What is "the box"? How do you get out of the box? How do you get out of your story to revise it-

-or to write another one?

The questions assume the story is there, a given in the universe. The story--the proverbial "box" of the familiar and accepted--becomes the obstacle. Yet the truth is, it is not there until you create or accept it. And people are always free to change their minds, beliefs and core assumptions.