In his new book Make Change That Lasts, wellness guru Dr Rangan Chatterjee, promises to help you transform your life. One busy working mum followed his advice with surprising results...
15:52, 21 Jan 2025Updated 16:22, 21 Jan 2025
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Being busy, productive and getting the most out of every hour of the day is often seen as a sign of success and this cult of "busyness" is something I have subscribed to over the years. I’ve long held a desire to fill every minute of my time doing something “productive” whether that’s at work or in the home.
But I've started to rethink everything that I thought was important. The reason for my new attitude? Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s new book, Make Change That Lasts (currently on Amazon with 47% off selling for £10) which explores how we can make true, meaningful alterations to our life rather than the usual short-lived resolutions.
Dr Chatterjee has been a medical doctor for 23 years and hosts Feel Better, Live More, the most successful health podcast in Europe. He also shares wisdom and evidence-based insights with his 1.2 million followers on Instagram. Now he has shared his formula for forming positive habits for life.
He focuses on nine ways (scroll down to see the list, below) that we can examine our habits and what's behind them so that we can start changing our ways for the better. But this is more than just the usual list of good habits to adopt (eat less, exercise more, drink more water etc).
“Unhealthy habits are always seen as a cause of ill-health,” he writes. “[But] we’ve got the concept of unhealthy habits all wrong. Instead of being a cause of problems that need to be somehow eradicated, I see unhealthy habits as a symptom of other ‘upstream’ problems.”
These are issues that might not be immediately obvious to us. “An individual’s overconsumption of sugar, for example, may be their way of dealing with a toxic work environment,” he says. “Someone else’s excess alcohol consumption may be their way of dealing with unresolved issues in their intimate relationships.”
These bad habits are in fact “downstream symptoms” of an “upstream” emotional cause, which needs to be addressed. Dr Chatterjee explains that the most important thing we can all do to inspire lasting change is to develop our powers of insight to then create a life of “minimal reliance”.
This describes a way of living in which we are no longer dependent on outside forces to feel happy or content, such as having a need to be liked or have other people validate our opinions. He also says that the daily practices he suggests are “so effective you’ll feel the benefits within a week.”
So how did I do when I took on the challenge? Along with my colleague Serena Richards, I spent nine days putting his ideas into practice but, full disclosure, I read this book in the run-up to Christmas and there were times where I was kicking myself for committing to reading a chapter a day during one of the busiest spells of the year.
However, the simple act of working through the book gave my mind the rest it needed. On a busy train during my commute I would turn to it instead of scrolling on my phone. It was a small act but had a big impact on how calm I felt during rush hour in London.
Dr Chatterjee’s guidance is also refreshingly frank and one of his assertions - that “busyness can be a sign of laziness” - stopped me in my tracks. Apparently, rather than being an indicator of success, having a too-packed diary is a sign that we haven’t organised our lives properly. He also urges ripping up the ‘to do’ list, saying: “The to-do list of an ordinary adult is like a magic bucket that keeps refilling forever”.
Another piece of advice stood out to me - to embrace physical and emotional discomfort and expect adversity. It sounds morbid but, following his advice, I started actively thinking about death first thing in the morning. It helped focus my mind on what was truly important each day.
His reflections on perfectionism and people-pleasing (putting other people’s needs ahead of your own) really made me think about my role as a parent. He says that children who are loved unconditionally are unlikely to grow up to be people pleasers.
And his words were uppermost in my mind one night while settling my toddler after a mild tantrum and a short spell of crying. I looked them directly in the eye and said: “Mummy loves you even when you are upset”. It was quite remarkable to see the reaction - their demeanour changed, they reached out and gave me a hug before agreeably changing into their pyjamas and snuggling up for a bedtime story.
What was most interesting to me was that the changes that seemed most achievable were the most difficult to put into practice. For example, Dr Chatterjee encourages us to build up our own inner awareness by blocking out at least five mins to connect with ourselves daily.
It sounds easy but it was only on day nine after I’d read the whole book that I managed to set aside time to sit with my own thoughts and nothing else. I fidgeted so much during those few minutes that it made me realise that this is something I need to work on.
Essentially that’s the crux of it - it’s about changing your mindset. Make Change That Lasts isn’t a “read it once and you’re all sorted” kind of book. It’s something to return to again and again. By the time I finished, I felt I wasn’t just at the end of the book, I was at the beginning of an exciting new journey.