Have you ever gone on holiday and believed that you could live there? Then you have been caught by the mental sunshine effect.
The Sunshine Effect is when we are caught up in a joyous experience, seperate from what we normally live, and believe that it can fully replace our current reality. That moment, that space around us, feels so happy we consider we can exchange our existing everyday life for it. Most typically it’s on a vacation to some beautiful sunny location. Hence The Sunshine Effect.
In September 2000 Channel 4 TV in the UK launched a brand new lifestyle TV show. The premise was that British couples were helped to find their perfect property abroad in warm climates that they could retire to or rent out part of the year when they weren’t using it. The show was called, ‘A Place in the Sun’.
Twenty five years later and it has aired some 2000 episodes featuring over 3500 people seeking the sunshine dream that the programme wants to make real with them. For some, that’s precisely what happened, for others, something else ended up taking place.
Perhaps the clue that it may not all turn out like the idyllic future that some had in mind on the show, was that some 10 – 15% of participants had never actually been to the location they wanted to relocate to. They saw it once on TV, read about it in a magazine/newspaper, or heard about it from others, and decided as it was a sunny seaside place that looked beautiful, it would be their forever home.
But forever changed fairly soon.
Dreams are full of sunshine.
All our dreams are full of sunshine. We see ourselves happy or wealthy, or loved or successful. And that’s all. We believe so much in that sunshine, in our mind it’s all we see. Reality will match the imagined fantasy. Nothing else could possibly happen.
It’s clearly what many couples and lone buyers on A Place in The Sun felt too. But the dream in the head wasn’t the same daily life they encountered when they got there. The picture postcode mindset gave way to less than sunny experiences. What they expected in heart, feelings, and circumstances, didn’t materialise either fully or in any part.
While no exact numbers have been released, the estimated numbers of those who bought abroad on the show but then came home is as much as 20%. You can even find stories of those who did just that and shared why they never found quite what their sun filled mind had promised them.
That’s the Sunshine Effect. Seeing only the Cinderella type outcomes and the feelings and beliefs that come with them, and nothing else. We don’t need a beach to cause that. It’s something we’ve all done at some time in normal life. Maybe you recognise a few of these yourself –
Pictures of love.
Here’s some typical examples of amazing sunshine pictures we’ve shown ourselves that turned out as nightmares –
- Buying the expensive sports car that would get you the girls that kept breaking down and left you with no money to do anything else.
- Falling for blonde haired guys who dressed well because they were your ideal man but looks couldn’t buy you love as they liked to enjoy lots of ladies attention.
- Spending more than you could afford to buy the house you always wanted but it cost you a small fortune to run it and traffic locally was hellish.
- Quitting your job to travel and blog or film YouTube videos as an influencer but you soon realised your were one of thousands of others doing the same and no-one followed you or saw your postings.
What’s yours been? Or keeps being?
And the list goes on. Each situation starts with the Sunshine Effect all warm and welcoming. All of them end up with seeing the cold light of day. Sure, have a big goal or aspiration to follow. But, develop a growth plan over time based on research and knowledge, not just feeling the vibe and being drawn in. Big aspirations are highly recommended, but don’t get sunburn in the mind having ones that are more hope than personal meaning.
We all adore a bit of sunshine but don’t let that take root in your mind.
That mindset can lead to a place in the no fun.
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References – www.aplaceinthesun.com – About us.
www.inews.co.uk – A Place in The Sun