Praise for Helen Russell and
The Year of Living Danishly

‘A hugely enjoyable romp through the pleasures and pitfalls of setting up home in a foreign land’

PD Smith, Guardian

‘A lovely mix of English sensibility and Danish pragmatism. Helen seems to have understood more about the Danish character than I have! My only worry is that it will make everyone want to have a go and my holiday home area will get overcrowded’

Sandi Toksvig

‘Russell is possessed of a razor-sharp wit and a winning self-deprecation – two of the things that make this book such a delight’

Independent

‘A wryly amusing account of a new life in a strange land’

Choice

Also by Helen Russell

The Year of Living Danishly

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www.tworoadsbooks.com

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Two Roads

An imprint of John Murray Press

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Helen Russell 2016

The right of Helen Russell to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Some names, places and identifying features have been changed to preserve anonymity.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 473 63499 2

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

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50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.hodder.co.uk

For my hectic household and the bride

PROLOGUE – A VERY GOOD PLACE TO START

When imagining a life-changing moment, it’s often set against a sunset on an exotic beach. Or while seeing a baby being born. Or staring into the eye of a tiger. Or a really bad-tempered bear. Something big; awe-inspiring and meaningful. But when it comes down to it, what actually happens is this: it’s midnight, it’s minus five, and I’m in the street where I live in rural Denmark in my pyjamas. I’m grappling with a wheelie bin lid that has frozen shut, in an attempt to deposit my son’s soiled nappy, when I hear a ‘ting’ that alerts me to a new text message on my phone. My mother is being taken to hospital, one of her friends informs me. She can’t call now, but she’ll keep me posted. I should ‘try not to worry’.

I should try not to worry.

I should ‘try’? Not to ‘worry’?

This isn’t easy as I’m currently 1,000 kilometres and an ocean away. I search for flights from my corner of Denmark to south-east England, but there’s nothing available. Trains and ferries are also ruled out. Another message tells me to sit tight for further updates. So I do.

All night.

By the time the sun starts to flirt with the horizon, sending the world a weird neon pink, I’m exhausted. Morning is broken and so am I.

After what feels like an eternity, my mother gets the all-clear, bar a few check-ups, and normal service can resume. Only it doesn’t. Something has shifted, and I can’t shift it back. And the one, big, scary thought that keeps circling around my head is: ‘You have to move home.’

I suspected this day would come. But in common with the rest of my life to date, I never planned for it.

A few years ago, I agreed to leave London and emigrate when my husband was offered his dream job working for Lego in Denmark. We decided to give it a year and I set myself the challenge of living as Danishly as I could to uncover the secrets of the country that kept getting voted the world’s happiest. It worked out well and the year-long experiment slipped into two, with us barely noticing. And then three. But it was never meant to be forever.

I’ve enjoyed living Danishly. I’ve learned to have something approximating a work–life balance; I’m healthier; and I’m happier. My husband, AKA Lego Man, is a cross between Bear Grylls and Liberace who has embraced both the Danish design culture and their outdoorsy way of life. He’s experienced career fulfilment on a scale he’d never contemplated and built some ludicrously large models of historic landmarks out of plastic bricks. We’ve also built our very own Viking – a mini flame-haired warrior we affectionately call Little Red, born in 2014 after years of fertility treatment and thanks in part, I’m sure, to a different pace of life in Denmark. I’ve been working as a Scandinavia correspondent and writing about Nordic living and happiness, which in turn has made me more fulfilled career-wise. We love it here. But our family is in the UK and the idea that my mother, who lives alone, could need help and not have me anywhere nearby has shaken me.

As the only child of a single mum, we’ve always been close. A team, even. And although neither of us wants to live in each other’s pockets, I’d like to be able to reach her in an hour or so, if needed. But right now I can’t. She has good friends and a gentleman caller she’s been stepping out with for some time, but it’s not the same. Lego Man is feeling the distance from his family as well. Our son was wary of his paternal grandparents on their last visit. They only see him every six months due to a spectacularly busy retirement schedule and an aversion to Skype. I’d love my son to have the same close relationship with his grandparents that I had with mine. But that’s not going to happen across the North Sea. Everything in Denmark is centred around family life, but there are only so many ‘grandparent days’ at my son’s nursery that I can attend before Ingvild’s grandfather starts to think I’ve developed a crush on him. (I haven’t, FYI. It’s Otto’s I’ve got my eye on.)

We’d also like a home of our own. We rent at the moment, but because we didn’t quite understand the Danish paperwork, we’ve inherited a landlord who occasionally lets himself into our basement unannounced and claims no responsibility for the perpetually mouldy windows that regularly leak. We have a communal garden, but our mutt of a dog is a nutter and really fond of licking/tail-whipping the neighbours more enthusiastically than I suspect they might like. We still haven’t mastered the Danish language (apologies, Vikings), so can’t imagine staying for ever. And if it’s a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, well, then we should probably start thinking about it sooner rather than later.

After my nappy bin epiphany, Lego Man and I talk long and hard about the pros and cons of leaving. Despite the cons list getting longer with each depressing news report from our home country, the one word ‘family’, in the pros column, makes a big move look like The Right Thing To Do. But, despite this, the decision is far from straightforward.

As well as going ‘home’, we’d be starting over. Places and people change, so we wouldn’t be slotting back into our old life. My husband could carry on working at Lego from their London hub, but I’d need to think about what direction my career should take. I worked in-house on a glossy magazine when I last lived in the UK, only going freelance because I couldn’t write for Danish-language publications. My last staffer job was exciting, and occasionally glamorous, but the tempo of city living was relentless and I – along with many of my peers – felt burned out. Moving to Denmark pumped the brakes on my expected career path. I learned to make the best of freelancing but always assumed I’d go back to a big shiny job in the UK. But should I really rejoin that particular race? And would they want me, anyway? There’s very little that’s glossy about me these days. Now I work from a desk in the corner of the living room, often in clothes that have elasticated waistbands. And with a toddler in tow most of the time, I’m lucky if I leave the house unstained.

We’d need to find a place to live and after years of wholesome rural pursuits in the Danish countryside, Lego Man is adamant that the answer to the question of where this should be is ‘not in the city any more’. So we might be on course to join the throngs of commuters in suburbia.

Friends have moved on, or moved out of London to their own corners of the country. And we have a child now, so our social life and our priorities have shifted. Drinking until 4 a.m. doesn’t hold the same appeal when you’re habitually woken at 5 a.m. by an ebullient toddler. Moving back to the UK would be as much of a fresh start as setting sail for Denmark was, and would mean changes in every area of our lives. And I am terrified of change. But I realise I’m going to have to get better at coping with it, as well as finding a way to bite the bullet and Decide Things. Because, apparently, assuming the foetal position and hoping ‘change’ will just go away isn’t tenable, long-term. So, as a short-term measure, I opt for my second-favourite coping strategy – eating baked goods and Googling. I kick off with a few vague enquiries, like ‘how on earth to make a big decision’ and ‘can you learn to enjoy change?’, then look up to find a whole morning has vanished, along with a packet of Cadbury’s Fingers.

Just as there are psychologically accepted phases when experiencing a loss, it turns out that there are seven classic psychological reactions to big changes in our lives. We go from denial to anger, confusion, depression, crisis, acceptance and then finally (hopefully) new confidence. But getting through these phases and out the other side requires some effort – and, in my case, courage. Thankfully, The internet assures me that there are some great things about starting over, too.

Trying new things releases dopamine – the ‘happy hormone’ – in our brains, and doing something new can even make our lives seem longer. In the same way that the journey home from a new place always feels shorter than the outbound trip, researchers have found that time appears to slow down during new experiences – and accelerate during repetitions.

Turning over a new leaf can also be invigorating. While I may find the thought of change paralysing, studies show that when most of us begin a new relationship – or job, or even a friendship – we are the best version of ourselves. This is because we’re motivated, focused and our energy ‘bank’ is still in credit. There’s nothing quite like that sense of the possibilities that lie before us when we’re starting out – or starting over. At the beginning of any new life stage, all of us tend to behave well. We make an effort. We pay attention. We try to be thoughtful and we’re polite, mostly. We are our best selves. There’s a thrill involved in doing something for the first time. Then, as it becomes familiar, this lessens. From the ‘hunt’ to the ‘honeymoon period’, we move into habit-forming and then, well, then things can get a bit … humdrum.

And so, because I’m a terrible procrastinator and still in the ‘denial’ stage of change, I take a detour from contemplating the practicalities of leaving Denmark. I start thinking instead about the power of fresh starts and how, actually, there are a lot of areas in my life that might benefit from change, if only I were braver.

Take love, for example.

Having been with my other half for seven years at the time of writing, I’ve become acutely aware of the ‘seven-year itch’. Primarily because people keep reminding me of it. This is the bona fide psychological term to describe the ‘decline in relationship satisfaction’ that classically occurs after eighty-four months, 364 weeks or 2,555 days of romantic ‘bliss’. Deck the halls … It’s often referred to in relation to the 1955 Marilyn Monroe film, but the phrase originated as a descriptor for a variety of irritating and contagious skin complaints. Like scabies.

My husband and I do not have scabies. What we do have is an imperfect, regularly ridiculous, real relationship. We’re happy enough, but it’s nothing like it was in the early days. Then, he would cook for me, using elaborate recipes, artisanal ingredients and ramekins. Now, he occasionally gets out his waffle machine and makes a lot of mess with batter before presenting my son and me with something that looks as though it should be used to pack hi-fi equipment. He’ll drizzle liberal quantities of maple syrup over the plate, the table and – often – the dog, then announce with a flourish: ‘Ta da! Dinner is served!’ During our initial courtship, I would epilate and moisturise every inch of my body like a woman possessed. Since then my lady-grooming standards have slipped rather and my body hair mantra is now: ‘More than Barbie, less than Chewbacca = good to go’.

But with the wind of change blowing, I start wondering about whether it’s possible to recapture the magic and kick-start a relationship.

Of course, fresh starts aren’t all of our own choosing. Not all new beginnings are welcome and one of my oldest friends has just been unceremoniously dumped. A former colleague-turned-comrade has been made redundant, and a third friend is having to find somewhere else to live, fast. Plenty of gin has been consumed to cope with all of these things and it has been unanimously agreed that ‘life sucks sometimes’. I’ve been in each of these scenarios and they aren’t pretty. One unseasonably stormy August some years back, I had a break-up that necessitated a complete relocation. I scored the hat-trick of losing my home, job and boyfriend in the space of a month. Careless, I know. I did not cope well and the fallout included a period of incapacitating insomnia, many unsuitable rebound dates, crying during interviews for new jobs (professional), and midnight M*A*S*H* marathons while basting in my own misery.

Most of us have unwanted change thrust upon us at some point in our lives, with 42 per cent of marriages in the UK ending in divorce and the average person being made redundant three times in a lifetime. Being a grown-up isn’t always a hoot. And if a relationship, job, friendship or living arrangement is terminated without our say-so, making a major turnaround work for us takes on a different heft.

But life is change, I rationalise. Living is all about uncertainty and venturing into the unknown. As my Danish neighbour likes to almost-quote: ‘To try something new causes stress; not to try something new is to give up on yourself’. Denmark’s founding father of philosophy Søren Kierkegaard is long gone, so can’t set her straight on his original wording, but I find myself agreeing with the sentiment. Everything that stands out as giving my life meaning has involved taking risks, both personally and professionally. There isn’t a safe way to make the leap; we just have to jump. And it can feel like a long way down.

I’d like to learn to be more resilient: robust and better placed to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous adulthood. We’ve all met people who appear Teflon-coated and remain unfazed in the face of adversity – chameleons who manage change effortlessly while maintaining their dignity and good hair throughout. Like Beyoncé. Or Maverick from Top Gun.

I am not one of those people.

Change chameleons inspire a sort of awe and curiosity in me, because I tend towards the other end of the spectrum, clinging doggedly to the status quo (not the Francis Rossi version) regardless of good sense or circumstances – like a flamingo on a dual carriageway.

Lego Man finds this baffling. He’s better at change than I am and after years of living Danishly, I’m now convinced he has Viking DNA, with a wanderlust that would put King Cnut to shame. It’s exhausting, but he does offer a much-needed counterbalance.

Discussing a possible move with him one evening and pondering what this would mean for my work, he tells me, breezily: ‘You just need a plan.’ He says this while loading the dishwasher in a style I can only describe as ‘free-form jazz’. I wince as I watch a wine glass get crushed by a pan. ‘You know,’ he goes on, ‘for how you’ll reach your goals.’

‘What goals?’ I frown, opening the fridge to see what might constitute a post-dinner snack.

‘What do you mean “what goals”? Goals! For everything! Life goals!’

‘Er, have you met me?’ I pull out some foil-wrapped cheese that could do with ‘neatening up’: ‘I don’t set myself goals. That way, I can’t possibly fail. See?’ I offer him a hunk of Cheddar to distract from my failings and lure him away from the dishwasher before more fragile glassware lives are lost. He takes the cheesy bait but shakes his head as though it’s a miracle I’ve made it through life thus far. He’s just come back from a management course and I can see by the glint in his eye that I’m in for some ‘shared learnings’, whether I want them or not.

‘You need goals,’ he tells me sternly: ‘and proper plans!’ He stuffs cheese into a cheek and waves a soiled spatula at me to emphasise the point (it’s been a waffle-heavy week; the dog is slowly turning into a toffee apple). ‘You need to start happening to life, otherwise you’re just letting life happen to you!’

I’m pretty sure this appears on a motivational mug somewhere and that it’s another gem from his work seminar. But it does get me thinking.

When he puts it like that …

I have never had a strategy beyond the ingrained work ethic of ‘keep busy’. I tick off items on an extensive to-do list each day – but I’m never ‘done’. Because to plan and set goals would necessitate choosing. And I’m about as confident at decision-making as a snowflake. I can spend forever trying to decide, considering every option until time is lost and my energy levels are depleted by the sheer effort of it all. My mood declines and my soul shrivels as the world passes me by. I usually end up feeling that I’d have been better off picking an option – any option – right at the start and just going for it, whatever the outcome. I read an article on the BBC about Emotions Anonymous, an AA-inspired organisation where procrastination addicts meet to discuss indecision. I wonder whether I should go to a session but can’t make my mind up. So I phone a friend who’s great at deciding things and ask her what to do. Once she’s finished laughing, she tells me to get in touch with a former colleague of hers (‘who can help sort you out!’).

Ellen Bard is a psychologist and motivation expert with fifteen years’ experience in helping people to get better at making decisions and handling change. She tells me straight away that I’m pretty typical in my fear of change and making decisions – and that the two often go hand in hand.

‘As human beings, we’re scared of committing to just one future,’ she says. ‘We think that as soon as we commit, we rule out all the alternatives. As though once we make a decision, that’s it. But actually, there are very few decisions you can never go back on.’

I think about this and conclude that, bar parenthood, she’s right: Everything else is reversible, if needed.

‘Once you realise this, it’s very freeing. Life isn’t a chess game: we don’t need to think fifty moves ahead.’ I wonder whether I could record Ellen saying this and play it back to myself, several times a day. Or set it to music, Baz Luhrmann style. ‘It’s normal to be wary of change,’ she goes on, ‘and fear is a big part of most of us.’ Just how much of a part it is apparently depends on our personality and the five factors psychologists use to assess this – known as The Big Five, or the OCEAN test.

I like a test.

This one measures our openness to experiences (the ‘O’); conscientiousness (‘C’); levels of extroversion as opposed to introversion (‘E’); agreeableness and how much we like other people (‘A’); and finally, our position on the neuroticism spectrum (‘N’). A quick online search brings up the test and I answer a few questions to reveal that, shock horror, I’m ‘not at all’ open to new experiences. What I am is highly conscientious, extroverted and pretty agreeable, scoring high on ‘liking people’ and trying to please them wherever possible. But I also rank above average for neuroticism and have a tendency towards anxiety. I’m basically Judy Garland trapped in the talc-scented exterior of a 1950s WI member. It’s a heady combination that doesn’t sound hugely conducive to a balanced, confident approach to change. So I ask Ellen whether there’s any hope for me.

‘There are pros and cons to each personality trait – it’s just how you are,’ she tells me. ‘If you’re extroverted, you may be great at making friends and speaking in public. If you’re not terribly confident, you may be more empathetic. Worriers are often good at putting themselves in other people’s shoes. If you’re very open to new experiences, you’re more likely to take risks and make fast decisions, so you might need to remind yourself to take a little longer to consider the factors.’

I had assumed that there were certain characteristics possessed by the super-confident that meant change came easily (because: Beyoncé). But Ellen tells me: ‘Change is something we all have to work at. It’s also becoming more and more important for everyone to be able to adapt – because our pace of life is accelerating more quickly than ever. So it’s vital to know how to handle it.’

‘Right. Yes. And … how is that?’

‘First up? Understand that there is no perfect decision or ideal solution. To any change option. Ever.’

This sounds radical and I want to object: ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘But what about—’

‘No.’

‘Or maybe—’

‘Nope.’

‘Oh.’

‘A huge amount of time and energy can be invested in attempting to make the “perfect decision”, but no such thing exists,’ says Ellen. ‘Every possible decision will have pros and cons, and accepting this will speed up your decision-making – and help you relax about choosing an option.’

‘Okay. So what should we be doing?’

‘Well, you need to understand what the critical criteria are. Decide what the deal-breakers are for you and make a decision with these in mind. Then once you’ve decided, accept that sometimes you’ll get it wrong.’

This brings me out in a cold sweat. Having been raised to be a ‘good girl’ and a terrible people-pleaser, the idea of getting things wrong takes me right back to my schooldays. I don’t like being told off and spend much of my time trying to avoid this. I explain my phobia to Ellen and she commiserates: ‘It’s tough – and the idea that sometimes you will make mistakes is hard to swallow. But being comfortable with errors is crucial. You can’t waste energy beating yourself up. You need to take action, then move on. It’s not easy but it is possible.’

I ponder this. For a week.

I’m encouraged to learn that there are strategies I can use to get better at making decisions and even embracing change. I’m going to need these, whatever happens. But I always seem to find a reason to put off starting something new until a later date.

Making changes doesn’t seem like a very Tuesday-ish thing to do, I tell myself. Perhaps I should wait until next week? Monday seems like a much better day to start over. Or I could wait until the first of the month. Maybe, even, the new year. Everyone knows the new year is the best time to make changes. Right?

‘Wrong!’ chimes Dr Benjamin Gardner, an expert in behaviour change at King’s College London, when I call him for confirmation and approval (because: indecision). ‘Studies show that there’s no point waiting around. If you really want to change, there’s no need to wait for January first – you should just do it. And in fact, new year’s resolutions tend to fail, because we’re pitting our limited willpower stores against our “autopilot” of established behaviours and habits.’

In other words, if I’ve spent the past thirty-five years eating all the cake in the world, my body’s not going to understand why it’s only getting kale just because there’s a new calendar on the wall.

A recent British YouGov survey found that 63 per cent of us planned to turn over a new leaf along with the new year, with losing weight, getting fit and eating healthily topping our wish lists. But 90 per cent of those polled admitted that they ‘always’ fail on one of their resolutions and 32 per cent admitted that their resolutions are usually broken by the end of January. That’s one-twelfth of the way in. And we’ve been making and breaking new year’s resolutions for millennia. The Babylonians vowed to return objects they’d borrowed and repay debts at the start of each year, while the Romans started January by making pledges to the god Janus (hence ‘January’ – pub quiz fun fact). So that’s 1,700 years of broken promises …

This shouldn’t come as a colossal surprise. My resolutions for this year were: ‘drink more water’ and ‘eat healthily’. What I have actually done is: ‘drink more gin’ and ‘eat pulled pork’.

‘New year’s resolutions are often unrealistic, too,’ says Benjamin. ‘If you’re not currently doing any exercise and set yourself the goal of going to the gym five times a week, you’ll probably feel terrible by the third visit and give up because your body’s not used to it.’ Sloth one, gym bunny nil. ‘Another cause of failed resolutions is that people aren’t necessarily ready to change. External pressures have been proven time and again to be less good indicators for success than internal motivation and desires for change.’ So setting ourselves a deadline based on the date and other people’s expectations is bound to fail. ‘We’ve seen in studies that someone making changes for the sake of their health, for example – an internal factor – is far more likely to lose weight and keep it off long-term than those who are motivated by pressure from, say, friends and family – external factors.’

For behaviour change to occur, Benjamin tells me, we need the capability, opportunity and motivation to make it happen.

‘Assuming you’re making a resolution for the right reasons, the next question is: “Are you physically and psychologically capable of doing what it takes to succeed in making this change?”’ He leaves a pause as though waiting for an answer. I catch sight of my reflection in the window and mouth the word: ‘No …’

‘Because we all have motivation at the start,’ Benjamin goes on, ‘but studies show that this usually wears off.’

Oh God.

‘And then it’s just down to willpower?’ I’m panicking now. ‘What if I haven’t got any?’ I look at the disgrace of chocolate wrappers and coffee mugs currently adorning my desk like a Tracey Emin exhibit.

‘Well, willpower isn’t a character trait you’re necessarily born with. Studies show that you can train yourself to have more of it, but it also gets depleted if you overuse it – like a muscle.’

So the evidence of light snacking strewn around my desk may not be my fault: it could just be that my willpower has been overused!

Benjamin tells me about a study from Florida State University where a group of volunteers were invited to eat as many biscuits as they fancied from a spread laid out for them. So far, so science-lovely. A second group were told to resist the biscuits and eat radishes instead. Both groups were then given a tricky geometry puzzle to solve and observed to see how long they stuck at it. Those who’d had their fill of baked goods spent far longer on the puzzle than those who had just eaten radishes. Scientists took this to prove that a) radishes are NOT brainfood¹ and b) willpower is a resource that can be ‘used up’². Further experiments found that we find it harder to exert self-control after making difficult decisions and when we have low blood sugar. Which explains a great deal about my life to date.

‘So what can we do about this?’

‘Well, when we exhaust our willpower, we need to let it rest, again, just like a muscle,’ he says. ‘A good tip is to just engage your willpower when you really need it. So if you want to eat more healthily but always have a sugar-crash at 2 p.m. and crave biscuits, be aware that at 2 p.m. you need to make a plan to do something to avoid temptation. To change ourselves permanently, we need to focus our self-control on precise behavioural targets and overwhelm them. Then we need to replace the unwanted behaviours with good behaviours and make them habits.’

‘Fewer Crunchie Bars, more CrossFit?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Right.’

‘Monitoring your behaviour is a good place to start,’ says Benjamin, ‘as it helps us to be aware of our habits and what triggers them. So, just for instance, I know that I have a really sweet tooth and if there are biscuits in the house I will eat them. All.’ This is the third time he’s mentioned biscuits. I believe him. ‘By self-monitoring my behaviour, I’ve learned that I can’t just eat one or two and keep a half open packet in the house. So now, I don’t buy biscuits. Ever. I avoid the temptation – and so the depletion of my willpower reserves. Knowing yourself is key, then working out what you really want to change. Then, you just need to find the best way to do it depending on the change you want to make.’

I thank him and hang up, with the beginnings of a cunning plan.

And then I get the second Bat-Signal from the mother country in as many weeks.

A family friend I have adored since I was three is dying. I write and tell him how much he’s always meant to me and try to make him laugh, because, what else is there? And he writes back and says ‘thanks’ but that he’s pissed off. Understandably. He’s angry that he hasn’t done more ‘living’ and that he’s spent time being held back by worry. He tells me that if I want to change anything, I should do it now and that being afraid isn’t a good enough reason not to. And suddenly biscuits don’t seem so important any more. But finding a way to stop fear from holding us back does. So I promise that I’ll try.

In common with most non-experts, I don’t know the best ways to make changes. But I’d like to. I know that I’m deferring the big decision at hand – whether to leave Denmark or not. Though perhaps, I think, if I could change-proof all the other areas of my life, I’d become such a self-assured, resolute, She-Ra Princess of Power³ type that the decision might just … make itself?

So I spend some time with my head buried in books that throw up a wealth of conflicting advice about change and how to implement it. And this is just scratching the surface … What if there are distinct theories of change and optimum ways to ‘start over’ in every area of modern living?

I wouldn’t use a kettle to cook steak, or a wrench to unscrew a jam jar, or a power washer to deal with dirty dishes (though my husband probably would). Just as most tools have a specified use, there must be change theories that are better suited to specific realms of life, from the worlds of science, psychology, academia – even business.

Lego Man regularly goes on residential ‘change management’ retreats and does strange things with balance beams, whiteboards and beanbags. He comes home, drunk on jargon, saying things like: ‘I’m going to be stepping out of the engine room and on to the bridge for a while’ or ‘I’m going to give you more opportunities to fail and that’s okay.’ I’ll normally respond with an eye roll as our toddler looks bemused and the dog rolls over, displaying his undercarriage in the hope of a tummy rub. Last week he returned from a three-day ‘Celebration of Change!’ conference (the exclamation mark was apparently mandatory) and held forth on the ‘manifold merits of adaptability’. I tried to nip it in the bud and move the conversation on to more domestic realms, but he just held up a hand and told me:

‘Change can be challenging and it’s clear you’re in the denial stage right now.’

I told him he’d be in the ‘spare room’ stage shortly and the dog gave me a look as if to say: ‘This is the guy you’ve scrambled your DNA with?’

After a few hours, Lego Man will usually decompress and revert to an approximation of normal. But the next day our kitchen table will again be the recipient of all manner of shoutily titled business manuals brought home from work. Each promises to make him the next Bill Gates overnight, and yet every morning he wakes up as himself – and we accumulate more books. Occasionally, while conveying these from the kitchen table to the bookcase (destined for the top shelf, above Nigella, Jamie and all the other books featuring recipes with more than ten ingredients), I have a flick through.

In the business world, I glean, there are various ‘change processes’. Many of them, to be frank, seem a little wanky (technical term). But could they work? And would big businesses bother investing in them if they didn’t?

I decide to find out which WMTs (wanky management techniques) can help in the ‘real world’, as well as gathering together the less-wanky tweaks and adjustments proven by science – and, hopefully, me – to make everyday life better. For all of us.

In a moment of madness and uncharacteristic bravado, I tell Lego Man my plan, announcing that I’m going to set my first ever ‘life goal’ to get to grips with this change business and attempt to … er … ‘master it’.

‘What if,’ I say, ‘I could take psychologically endorsed theories of change and WMTs, and, you know, science and stuff, and put it all to the test? In every area of life, from work to money, family, relationships – even fitness!’

I won’t lie: I’ve had a glass of wine.

‘I could look at the evidence, speak to experts and then road-test their recommendations – on me!’

‘Like a guinea pig?’

‘Yes, like a guinea pig! And for anything I can’t try out myself, I’ll rope in—’ I stop myself: ‘I mean, “invite” friends to trial the theories! I could have a whole army of change guinea pigs! And we can all become lean, mean, decision-making machines! Bye-bye flamingos on dual carriageways, hello change chameleons! I’ll have a whole menagerie of change animals! This could be my year of making leaps into the unknown!’

‘The Great Leap Forward?’

‘Yes! Oh no, wait … no. Less Chairman Mao, more Beyoncé – and then we’ll know exactly what to do with our lives next! And we’ll just … you know, do it!’

I’m on fire now. Or drunk. You decide. Either way, after years of not making goals, you can’t say I’m not trying. I’ve often thought that enthusiasm is half the battle won, but my husband is less sure.

‘Cool,’ is his effusive response to my momentous declaration.

He slopes off to read an interior design magazine while whittling a rudimentary survival tool out of wood.

Unperturbed, I stand tall, make my way to the ‘stationery cupboard’ (a cupboard where we keep some stationery as well as the Hoover) and remove the film from a brand new notebook. I run the heel of my hand down its stiff centre until two blank pages of lined cream paper are fully exposed. Then I get a pen and write today’s date. And this feels like a very good place to start.