Enough Is Enough

Hallam isn't the first stressed-out Home Depot manager to show up at the Life Enhancement Center. Colleagues of his, some of whom visit the ranch twice a year, told him how beneficial the program can be. So he and his wife, Jeannine, 33, executive administrator for the Atlanta chapter of the American Society for Training and Development, decided to see if the center's offerings could help them enhance their life together. Married for three years, they sometimes find it hard to enjoy their professional opportunities, which require them to spend less time together than they would like to. Their relationship isn't anywhere near crisis yet, but they hear warning bells. Both devout Christians, they pray together daily -- yet work often seems to throw them off course.

Rob doesn't blame "the Depot," as he refers to the company. Promoting balance and health is part of its corporate philosophy. (Employees at headquarters have exercise facilities, for example.) Instead, he blames himself. He's easily seduced by all of the projects that come across his desk. Getting up-to-date information on 50,000 products into the hands of Home Depot associates, developing a series of Home Depot home-repair books -- such challenges get his juices going, and he wants to make the most of them.

But if he takes on too much, he creates more stress both at work and at home. "You get caught up in rapid growth, because growth is exciting," he says. "And you can get buried in that excitement."

Achieving profound self-awareness is difficult enough. Actually changing behavior -- well, that's even tougher. We can come to grips with destructive lifestyle patterns, we can acknowledge that tension or conflict is unhealthy -- but doing something about it? That's where many of us get stuck, Baker says. We cling to old patterns and bad habits, because changing them means breaking away from what's comfortable.

To achieve lasting change, you need to make an emotional connection to your new habits and to the benefits that you'll reap over time. Mel Zuckerman, the founder of Canyon Ranch, calls that connection an "aha" moment -- an "epiphany of spirit." It goes beyond an intellectual understanding of the reasons for change; it's something that you experience at a deeper, more personal level.

Dan Baker knows from personal experience that reaching that point isn't easy. He recalls a Sunday morning many years ago, when his 11-year-old son looked at him over breakfast and said, "Gee, I haven't seen you since last Sunday." Baker was floored by the irony: At the time, he was a psychologist at the National Center for Preventive and Stress Medicine, and he regularly talked with patients about how important their families should be to them -- yet he wasn't making enough time for his own family.

"I did some soul-searching after that," he says. "I asked, 'Why am I so driven? Why do I go to the hospital so early and stay until 10 at night?' I was successful, but I had tripled my caseload. I finally realized, 'I'm afraid of being a father.' I'd spent years training people about relationships, but I was afraid of having relationships." Despite that realization, he says, he needed another three years to change his life -- to cut back at work and to begin scheduling time with his family as if they were his most important client.

When people consider changing their lives, they often view the process as being so dramatic, so earth-shattering, that the mere prospect of change becomes overwhelming. And so they do nothing. Baker suggests that people think of change not as a major overhaul but rather as a gradual redesign: "It's all about continual improvement through small, incremental, seemingly insignificant steps. Let's say you're working 80 hours a week. How about cutting back by 5 hours a week? Now let's figure out how to spend those 5 hours on your health or on your relationships."

Toward the end of the week, Baker and his staff ask their guests, "What are you going to do during the other 51 weeks of the year?" On index cards, participants list three agenda items that they will pursue when they get home: nothing too ambitious -- just small, doable changes, first steps that can lead to bigger steps. At a final celebration on Saturday, the guests toast one another's progress, clinking flutes of sparkling cider. They exchange phone numbers and email addresses; they talk about holding a one-year reunion. Then they fly home and start putting their plans into action.

Back in Boston, Chris Newell calls a tennis pro to a schedule a lesson. He plans to play twice a week, as long as he's not on the road. He'd also like to teach his 13-year-old daughter, Stephanie, how to play, so that they can spend more time together. He says he's going to watch less television and to go to bed earlier, so that the can get up at 5:30 a.m. and run or bike before work. He'll concentrate on eating well-balanced meals and snacks instead of relying on a quick-fix diet. "On the plane home, I was looking over some of the low-fat recipes that I picked up," Newell says. "I'm going to the store tonight." As he sees it, he not only has a new job; he also has a new responsibility to his body.