Our lives are made up of moments. Some experiences are memorable, while others just fade to the background. What if we take control of a moment and create a lasting memory? Chip and Dan Heath guide us on how to enhance the defining moments of our lives through elevation, insight, pride, and connection. The Power of Moments teaches us to make the most of our experiences and create lasting memories from the moments we may have otherwise missed.

Defining what makes a moment memorable can be tricky. Why do we remember certain things and not others? Research shows that our minds omit a lot of what happens, leaving behind only a few details of our experiences. Much of what we remember can be attributed to a psychological phenomenon called the “peak-end rule.” When we recall an experience, we focus on two factors: the “peak” moment (which is the best or worst part) and the ending. In many situations, people tend to forget the length of an experience. Psychologists refer to this as “duration neglect” and it helps explain why we only remember certain parts of an experience.

In addition to the peak-end rule, transitions account for many of life’s defining moments. Graduating from high school, starting a new job, getting married, or starting a family are some of the transitions a person may experience. Transitions incorporate both a beginning and an end, strengthening their memory-making ability. Milestones are also responsible for a fair amount of our memories. We celebrate milestone birthdays and make fitness goals such as reaching 10,000 steps a day. However, many milestones go unnoticed unless someone or something, such as an app on our phones, points them out. 

Not all memorable experiences are positive. Negative events leave lasting memories as well. Moments known as “pits” are the opposite of peaks and cause anxiety or pain. The good news is that pits can be flipped into peaks under certain circumstances. When we have a bad experience at a restaurant or hotel, oftentimes management will attempt to transform the negative into a positive. Service recovery is an opportunity to flip the pit into a peak. 

Experiencing trauma also results in a life-defining moment. The anguish suffered after a traumatic event is often life changing. However, this can also lead to growth. Studies have discovered a phenomenon referred to as “post-traumatic growth,” during which many people reported positive personal change after experiencing a trauma. 

Potential memory-making situations often slip by without us even noticing. Seizing the opportunities to stop, recognize, and elevate these moments is up to us. Three ways to elevate a moment are to boost sensory appeal, raise the stakes, and break the script. We can enhance a moment with sensory appeal such as choosing a certain outfit for a special occasion by wearing something that makes you more confident and boosts your spirits. Competitions, deadlines, and games are all examples of “productive pressure” that raises the stakes. Lastly, we can break the script by doing something unexpected. For example, when a little boy left his favorite stuffed animal, Joshie, behind on vacation, the hotel staff put together a binder of photos and sent it back along with the stuffed animal. The photos showed Joshie lounging by the pool and enjoying a spa treatment. Rather than just returning Joshie, the hotel staff took the time to do something unexpected.

Moments of elevation are peaks. They create feelings of empowerment, joy, and lightheartedness. Certain life situations tend to lay flat, without any peaks or valleys. For example, unless someone seizes the opportunity to create a peak, school experience can be flat. Two teachers at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, California saw an opportunity to build a peak. Susan Bedford’s English class was reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Greg Jourile’s history class was studying the rise of fascism during World War II. How could they get their students actively interested in both classes? An idea was born when the teachers spoke of the parallels between Golding’s book and fascism. Bedford and Jourile teamed up to create the Trial of Human Nature in 1989. Students would participate in a mock trial where William Golding was being accused of misrepresenting human nature in Lord of the Flies. Students would portray expert witnesses such as Hitler, Gandhi, and Mark Twain. The trial has taken place every year at Hillsdale High School. Some years Golding is acquitted and freed and other years he is convicted. But every year, students rate the trial as one of their most memorable high school experiences.

An insight can be inspired by many different situations. Sometimes a negative event, such as losing a job, will lead to insight. After losing a job, one may look at the reason it happened and decide what they can learn from the situation to improve their life going forward. It is more meaningful when we discover an insight for ourselves, or “trip over the truth.” For example, a group of professors gathered to discuss their goals for the school year. When asked what they wanted their students to take away from the class experience, most of the professors answered that they wanted the students to connect, collaborate, and create in the classroom. However, when asked if these goals matched those on the professors’ syllabi for the year, it led them to trip over the truth—the syllabi did not even come close to reflecting the professors’ goals. 

Insight can be gained from taking a risk and learning from the experience. The risk of failure encourages us to step outside of our comfort zone. Learning who we are and what we are capable of can be a lifelong experience. Mentors can help us transform and improve by pushing us further than we would push ourselves. Because it is human nature to shield and protect those we care about, it may seem unnatural to mentors to expose their mentees to risk. But when we overcome our fear of failure, moments of insight are born.

A sense of pride washes over us when someone else recognizes and commends us for our actions. When 11-year-old Kira attended her choir class in sixth grade, her teacher told her to “pretend to sing” because she felt Kira’s voice was not blending with those of the other singers. That comment led Kira to believe that she was not good enough, despite her love for choir and singing. Kira enrolled in summer camp and decided to give choir another try. When the class began, Kira fell back into her habit of mouthing the words. The teacher noticed and asked her to stick around after class. The camp teacher and Kira sat at the piano to practice. At first Kira was shy, singing quietly. But the teacher’s support and encouragement helped her lower her guard. By the end of that one-on-one session, the teacher looked at Kira and told her she had a distinctive and beautiful voice. This was a moment of pride for Kira, and one that she would remember vividly in the future. Pride can be sparked by spontaneous recognition and can have a boomerang effect on those who have elevated the recipient’s spirits, making it a memorable moment for both parties.

Another way to create pride in a moment is to use a “level-up” approach. Steve Kamb came up with this approach after taking his love for video games and transforming it into a way to motivate himself to achieve milestones. Steve would play video games for hours on end. Whenever he reached the next level, he felt a sense of pride. Steve wondered how we could take that feeling of pride in an accomplishment and apply it to other elements of his life. We often set goals for ourselves, such as learning to play an instrument or learning a foreign language, but we never set stepstones along the way. The level-up approach permits us to stop at stepping stones along the way to our big milestone and feel pride in the smaller accomplishments. The first step could be to commit to piano lessons for a month. The next step could be to learn a favorite song, and so on until the milestone of confidently playing the piano is achieved. Feeling the small moments of pride along the way keeps us motivated to reach our milestone, all while creating memories.

Creating a shared meaning of an experience encourages social development and helps to define some of life’s most memorable moments. Many of our life-defining moments occur in a social setting: weddings, graduations, birthday parties, and concerts. The presence of others makes these events more meaningful. 

When trying to create moments of connection it helps to have a shared purpose with others. Purpose and passion are distinctly different. Purpose is finding meaning in your work and contributing to others. Passion is the excitement or enthusiasm you feel toward your work. University of California, Berkeley Professor Morten Hansen conducted a survey of 5,000 employees and managers to try to determine what motivated the top performers. What he discovered was purpose—not passion—led people to perform better at work. Passion is internal, whereas purpose is a shared experience. 

The pride we feel connecting with others can move beyond our work experience and into our personal lives. Relationships require attention and responsive behaviors to flourish. Social psychologist Harry T. Reis published a research paper in 2007 titled “Steps Toward the Ripening of Relationship Science.” The goal of his research was to figure out why some relationships are successful, while others fall apart. The answer lies in something termed “perceived partner responsiveness.” When we perceive our partners as responsive to our needs, and we then reciprocate with responsiveness, our relationships grow stronger. Responsiveness requires understanding, validation, and caring. 

For a relationship to be successful, partners must take turns responding to each other’s needs. Social psychologist Art Aron, along with four colleagues, conducted a study called “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness.” The study involved college students being paired with other students they did not know. The pair would then take turns answering 36 questions drawn from an envelope. The questions became more intimate as they went on. Once the students responded to all the questions, they answered a survey which also included an IOS (or Inclusion of the Other Self) scale. This survey was meant to gauge how close the students felt to one another after the exercise. The average result was a 3.82 out of a maximum of 7 on the IOS scale, indicating that the students felt a level of intimacy with one another. Thirty percent of them didn’t even score their most intimate relationships above that average. The results concluded that, along with the increased vulnerability created by the questions, taking turns asking and answering questions led to intimacy. However, it should also be noted that we must start the cycle of turn-taking as it doesn’t happen naturally.

How do we transform everyday situations into life defining moments? First, we must take the time to stop and address a specific moment. A simple gesture such as a teacher taking the time to praise a student, or a hotel manager taking a guest’s stay to the next level with a personal touch can elevate seemingly mundane moments. Happiness and self-transformation are just two of the outcomes of this elevation.

Some of the principles that can be used to transform moments include breaking the script to elevate a moment or practicing responsiveness in our relationships to boost our social interaction and create deeper memories. It turns out many of the experiences we deem as serendipitous are of our creation. We create life defining moments more often than we realize. We can generate even more memories if we “stay alert to the promise that moments hold.” 

These insights are just an introduction. If you're ready to dive deeper, pick up a copy of The Power of Moments here. And since we get a commission on every sale, your purchase will help keep this newsletter free.