3 Part Change

Changing habits happens when three parts come together.

1. Intellectual – You logically understand the change and decide to make it.
2. Emotional – You build emotional connections to the new pattern and understand the roots of the emotional connections to the old pattern well enough to let them go.
3. Habitual – You cultivate new routines that push you into the desired behaviors.

What Would You Change?

I have no power. It’s not my job. There’s nothing I can do.

These are examples of the kind of hopeless statements that change.org may just make obsolete. This simple site allows ordinary people to create petitions which lead to citizen and consumer support which leads to media attention which leads to powerful organizations cowing in a way they never would have in the past. What do the powerless achieve through change.org?

• Fourth graders beat up on Universal Studios.
• A nanny took on Bank of America.
• Ecuadorian women took on their government which agrees to their demands.

So what would you change?

More importantly, what’s stopping you?

Continuum

Tactical and strategic are a continuum. They are not buckets. Do something tactical enough times and it will be strategic. Often times the biggest changes in our worlds occur from the seed of tiny initial actions.

Up the Stream

Lessons from my author’s retreat (cont.).

David Korten shared with me a lesson from his graduate school experience.

A man stands at the side of a river and sees a baby flailing about in the water. He jumps in to save the baby. Back on the riverbank he sees another baby in the water and repeats his heroic action. This repeats again and again and again. While the man’s actions may be viewed as heroic, what is truly needed is for him to head upstream to see why all of these babies are falling into the river in the first place.

We too often address the challenge we see rather than looking upstream. We need to more often seek out the root causes, both on a large scale (e.g., Why is this system failing?) and a small scale (e.g., Why did this person act in this way?).

What’s Your Meme

Lessons from my author’s retreat (cont.).

“A meme is ‘an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.'” (Wikipedia)

E.g., The Lone Ranger is a meme of American society. Reality TV has spread the meme that any one of us can be plucked into fame and that, in fact, 15 minutes of fame is a highly desirable end.

The folks at smartMeme believe that perhaps the best way to change society is to shift the memes.

I think if I could change any meme to reshape society it would be to replace lotto dreams with a desire for spiritual fulfillment.

What meme do you think we most need to replace to improve our society?

You Say You Want a Revolution

Lessons from my author’s retreat (cont.).

Deborah Frieze, author of Walk Out Walk On, shared her model of the cycle of system revolution, that is, how old systems get replaced by new ones. She described the varying roles that people play in the process.

• Pioneering – Coming up with and pursuing the new ideas.
• Protecting – Clearing the way for the pioneers and shielding them from the old system.
• Hospicing – Compassionately caring for the old system as it heads into decline.
• Illuminating – Helping people see the need to make the leap from the old system to the new system.
• Clinging (my term, not hers) – Hanging onto the old system at all costs, and fighting the pioneers wherever possible.

What are the major changes happening around you? At work? In the world?

And what role are you playing?

Performance of a Lifetime

Integrity is important. No one likes having their integrity challenged. And so we find it distasteful to “be fake” or somehow act in a way that isn’t who we are.

But who we are in the end is a result of how we choose to act. We are the only ones who get to define ourselves. And so if we want to define ourselves in a new way, that’s not disingenuous. That’s change.

Take someone who is a miserable morning person. If they drink coffee to perk themselves up we don’t consider that disingenuous or fake. It’s just smart – and appreciated.

Striving to be more energized or enthusiastic or calmer or toned down or less eager or more talkative or less talkative isn’t choosing to be fake. It’s choosing to be better. It’s you 2.0, the next generation. It’s an indication of maturity that you should be willing to grow.

“I don’t want to be fake,” is a convenient excuse for accepting a characteristic that holds you back. Don’t allow yourself that. If it’s important, if it will help you, if you want it, redefine yourself. Be a performer. Before you know it, it won’t be a performance anymore. It will be the new you.

Mantra Systems

The problem with human beings is that we don’t do those things we know will be healthier and more effective for us. Rather we do what our emotions or our past habits lead us to do.

For example, my book Be the Hero can be summarized, “Think positively. Act positively. You will be happier and more effective.” Few people would disagree. The challenge isn’t in understanding or agreeing. It is in acting in accordance with these ideas. And not just when things are going well, but when facing the big challenges and frightening opportunities that come your way.

The same is true for diet and exercise, quitting smoking, being open to feedback, speaking up, holding your tongue, not being intimidated, and any number of other changes people try to make. The challenge isn’t understanding and agreeing with the new behavior. It is implementing that behavior with consistency.

One solution is the mantra – a simple statement that acts as a rallying cry for you and anyone else who is sharing the change you are making. Mantras work because they

• remind you of the change
• focus your attention
• crowd out unhelpful thoughts
• simplify your actions

Mantras aren’t the only systems to help people change. But they are a great starting point. For a mantra in action, here’s one of my favorites.

Change Everything

Thursday I wrote you really have to change things one at a time. Overhauls don’t work. We’re not built that way. But what if you really have to change everything?

What if your company requires a transformation? What if you are moving across the country or to a different country? What if you are getting a divorce or a new job or married?

Transformations are sometimes forced upon us and require that we change lots of behaviors and routines all at once. How do we do that effectively?

The answer lies in the ideas behind changing only one thing at a time. When you change one thing you can focus. It’s simple. You pay attention to that one change and don’t have to worry about anything else.

When you have to change many things the key is to find the one idea or process that binds everything else together.

• Organization transformation – maybe it’s a dashboard where you track all the individual changes.
• Divorce – maybe it’s a focus on kids first no matter what.
• New job – maybe the key is to continually seek input from your new colleagues.

When you have the luxury, it’s generally wise to change one thing at a time. When transformation is thrust upon you, find the key concept that binds all the little changes together.

One at a Time

What do you do when you want big change? An overhaul? A total transformation?

The answer – change one thing.

That’s how we change. That’s how we learn.

I used to run training events where participants would regularly tell me, “I’ll be happy if I just get one good idea from this event.”

It drove me crazy. I wanted them to get 50 or 100 new ideas. I wanted them to transform themselves and their businesses. But we’re not constructed to do that.

One new idea really is the way to go.

Once you habituate that change, it’s time to move on to the next one.

So this has me thinking. What is my one thing right now? And what’s yours?