Aha! Now Do It Again Tomorrow – Episode #721

In this solo episode of Live On Purpose Radio, Dr. Paul Jenkins draws a line between two kinds of learning that thirty years of clinical work have only sharpened for him: breakthrough learning and transformational learning. Breakthrough is the moment something clicks, an insight from a podcast, a book, or a seminar that suddenly makes an old pattern visible. Transformation is what happens after the lights come on, and it looks a lot less exciting: repetition, practice, and showing up again the next day.

 

Dr. Paul uses his own life as proof. He plays the piano and is fluent in Finnish, and neither came from a moment of inspiration; both took years of deliberate practice. He ties this to a principle he returns to often: awareness precedes choice. Until a pattern becomes conscious, he says, we are simply running programs we inherited, the same way we inherited our native language from our parents without ever choosing it. Once we see the pattern, new choices open up.

 

The rest of the episode makes the case for rhythm over motivation. Dr. Paul shares an image his daughter gave him: a seed that needs three gallons of water over a month does not want it dumped on all at once, it needs daily sprinkling. He argues most people get their positivity the same way, in big occasional doses from a seminar or a book, with no daily practice behind it. Quoting something one of his own coaches taught him, that information is free but containers are rare, he makes the point that most of us do not have a knowledge problem, we have an implementation problem.

 

He closes with the episode's title as the instruction: enjoy the breakthrough, then get up tomorrow and do it again. What inspires you today can only transform you if you practice it. Learn more about the show at liveonpurposeradio.com and about Dr. Paul's work at drpauljenkins.com.

What is Live on Purpose Radio?

Live On Purpose Radio features principles of prosperity, abundance, and positive psychology to help you create and live the life you love. As you listen to Live On Purpose Radio, you’ll hear powerful stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Dr. Paul Jenkins interviews inspiring people about principles that empower them to live on purpose. Living on purpose means that you have a purpose, and that you do it intentionally. Live on Purpose Radio, LiveOnPurposeRadio.com, started in 2007 and has been helping listeners worldwide overcome the effects of noxious negativity with a regular dose of Pathological Positivity. Share Live On Purpose Radio with anyone you know who would appreciate a dose of positivity in their life. Visit DrPaulJenkins.com for more resources to Live On Purpose.

This is Live On Purpose Radio, episode 721. Uh-huh. Now do it again tomorrow. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Live On Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul, the shrink, who expands your life with another episode of Live On Purpose Radio. Today on the episode, you get to hear something that I have learned over three decades now of clinical experience, and I'm more convinced of this now than ever. There's two kinds of learning. There's breakthrough learning, and there's transformational learning. So we've had the experience. Right? You hear something in a podcast or you read a book or you see a YouTube video. You attend a seminar, have a coaching session, and suddenly, the lights come on. I get it. Breakthrough learning can happen almost immediately. And something that you didn't see before suddenly becomes obvious. These moments are powerful, and they can illuminate a new possibility. They light the fire of motivation. But here's the trap. Understanding something is not the same thing as becoming something. So the breakthrough turns on the lights, but transformation happens in what you do after the lights come on. An example, playing the piano or speaking Finnish. Now I picked those two because I have personal experience with this. I play the piano, and I am fluent in Finnish. Now nobody expects to become fluent in Finnish simply because they had this inspiring idea that they were going to do it. Nobody learns how to play the piano because they heard a master play the piano. I remember times when I have played a piece that I've worked on sometimes for years. Someone hears that and they come up and say, oh, I wish I could play like that. Well, hello. It's not a wish kind of a thing. Playing the piano takes a lot of work, a lot of practice. So this illustrates the difference between these two kinds of learning, breakthrough learning and transformational learning. So let's get into that on today's episode. First, breakthrough. Breakthrough learning is about seeing something differently. This is the insight that you have when something clicks, when you suddenly understand why you've been stuck or you recognize a pattern that's been going on in your mind, in your parenting, your marriage, your mindset, your mental health, your relationships. Something that was subconscious becomes conscious. Now, the word subconscious. Let's break that down. Sub means below. Like subway, submarine. Conscious is aware. Awareness. So subconscious is below your awareness. It's lurking down there in an area where you can't really see it. Breakthrough learning is all about bringing that up to the surface, to the conscious, to the awareness. And awareness precedes choice. Meaning, until I see it as a choice, it's not. Until I see the pattern, I'm largely running a program that I inherited. And that's not a bad thing. It's just part of what we get to deal with in life. I'm fluent in English, as you can tell, as we're having this conversation in English. I didn't choose to speak English. I was programmed by a couple of people who didn't even give me a choice, my parents. Now I'm grateful that they programmed me in English. It's actually quite useful to me living where I live and doing what I do. But once you become aware of your programming, new choices become available. I'm fluent in Finnish not because I was programmed in Finnish but because I chose it. I intentionally went through a process to program and reprogram my brain to think differently and to establish new habits. That's transformational learning. Breakthrough experiences matter, and I don't want to diminish the moments. They're often the beginning of a very meaningful change, but they're also a little deceptive because an moment can feel so much like change that we mistake it for change. Feeling inspired isn't the same as being transformed. And that leads to this other kind of learning. Transformational learning requires repetition. You don't understand your way into playing the piano. You practice. You don't have a breakthrough and suddenly speak Finnish. You practice. Breakthrough learning is fun. It's inspiring. In fact, the word inspiration implies that there's some energetic connection to spirit and energy and all of the good stuff, and people tend to enjoy that experience. It's fun. Transformational learning is not particularly fun. Now it doesn't have to be miserable, but it it requires some effort and work and repetition. So if you're playing the piano, you got to learn some scales and practice them again and again and again. If you're learning a language, you get to learn some vocabulary and practice again and again and again. Repetition. You have to make mistakes. You have to go through the corrections for those mistakes. And then tomorrow, you do it again and again and again. You get the picture. The same thing applies to our psychological patterns. Now, your brain is basically lazy and loyal, and it likes to stick with what it's already used to. We've already practiced certain ways of thinking, for example. And I have people tell me all the time, well, I'm just I'm not very positive. It's kinda like saying I'm not very piano playing. And now I know that's not correct grammar, but think about the idea behind that. If you've been trained, taught, and educated to be pessimistic or negative, guess what's going to come naturally to you just like your language? So our parents programmed us with more than simply the language that we speak, the way that we see the world, the way we think, the way we evaluate our circumstances, the way we approach creation, the way we react to our circumstances, the way we communicate, whether we worry or not, how we handle parenting, how we relate to ourselves and other people. The list goes on and on and on. And the old patterns feel so natural that we think that's just the way it is. It's normal. And what you're doing isn't necessarily normal. It's just what you're used to. What feels natural is often simply what we've practiced. So if we've practiced a particular thought pattern thousands of times, one brilliant breakthrough moment doesn't erase all of that practice. The breakthrough says, hey, there's another way here. Transformation says, now practice the other way again and again and again. And that's where the title lands of today's episode. Now do it again tomorrow. Transformation needs rhythm, not just motivation. Motivation is really valuable, but it's unreliable. The breakthrough can light the fire, but transformation requires us to tend the fire. And that usually means daily practice, weekly reinforcement, reminders, repetition, rhythm, community, a context that brings us back to what we've already decided matters. Now, I'm thinking also of something that my daughter shared with me in our new positives platform, which I'll introduce to you here in just a minute. My daughter and I do a members only weekly podcast on whatever the topic is for the month, and we really dig into some of the principles that we're learning. And she pointed out that if you plan to seed and let's just say you know that that seed needs three gallons of water this month. You don't just go dump three gallons of water on the seed. You flood it. You wash it away. It doesn't help. You sprinkle it a little bit every day. And my experience is that a lot of times we get our positives in big doses, k, from the seminar, from the podcast, from the event, or the book, or the speech. And there's nothing wrong with that. But where's the daily sprinkling? Where is the rhythm? Where is the practice? One of my biggest frustrations as a psychologist is that I see it all the time. People have the lights go on and that's exhilarating. It's intoxicating. It's it's what draws a lot of us into the field because we love to see the lights go on. And then we as humans just go back to whatever we've already been programmed to do. And that is frustrating as a professional in psychology because what we really want to help people achieve is transformation, not just the breakthroughs. Yes. The breakthroughs are important. No. They're not sufficient. So I've said also recently something that one of my coaches taught me, and that is that information is free. Containers are rare. We don't have an information problem. We have all the information that we need. We have an implementation and practice problem, A programming issue. And I mean programming our own mind. Nobody says, I just went to my piano lesson on Tuesday. Why would I need to practice on Wednesday? We understand intuitively that learning a skill requires rhythm and repetition. So why would learning to think differently be any different from that? And I don't think it is. In my experience as a professional psychologist this is how it works. And when we miss a day or revert to an old pattern that's not evidence that the principle doesn't work. It's evidence that we're still learning. We're still gaining the fluency. Breakthrough gives us direction. Practice gives us transformation. We need both. We need those wonderful moments that turn on the lights. Hopefully, you're having some of those today as we're having this conversation. The the breakthroughs that light the fires of motivation and give us a possibility. And then we need a rhythm, a practice, a way to come back tomorrow and practice what we know now. That's exactly what we're building in our new positives platform. Now this is my life's work, and I didn't share this episode with you as an infomercial. But I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you that we're breaking into the transformational learning that has been lacking for so long in my industry. I'm going to give you a free sample of what we're doing over there. And we've got some breakthrough experiences. We've got some transformational practices. Practices. The platform is called Positives. And I'm going to introduce you through the Positivity Power Pack. So go to doctorpauljenkins.com/epp. And that stands for positivity power pack. That's where you can get connected to what we're doing there in the positives platform. And I'll also give you some other cool stuff like a free download of my mini book, Portable Positivity. I've got some resources for you. It's a power pack, but it also includes a sample of the daily practices that we're providing as part of your transformational learning experience. Hey. Enjoy the breakthrough. Celebrate the And then tomorrow morning, get up and do it again. Because what inspires you today can transform you tomorrow. But only if you practice. Are you ready to do this? You've heard it. It's time to apply it. Let's go live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.