Going beyond willpower
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives. —Alvin Toffler
You overeat, consume too much alcohol, smoke till you cough, skip the gym and grow fat, max out your credit cards, become dependent on painkillers and dangerous substances, procrastinate on projects, overdose on Facebook and Twitter, and explode in anger at the slightest provocation. You lose self-control and it becomes difficult to rise above the inevitable negative impact of such bad behaviors.
Realizing at some point that you are in dire straits, you start to harness your willpower to implement behavioral changes and corrective measures — force yourself to diet and exercise, cut alcohol consumption, regulate the use of plastic money, go to work on time, pick up the project that was left hanging for quite some time, avoid taking addictive substances, reduce Facebook and Twitter time, and control your temper.
Enter the authors of the bestseller Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler. They collectively argue that willpower is not the only answer when it comes to effecting change that can bring personal and professional success. They assert that while “willpower” is very important, change is as much a “skill” as it is a will, and that the key to change is in the awareness and understanding of the subtle but powerful influences that shape your choices.
The authors also posit that you must appreciate how top performers — in business and life — did many things well, and how their behaviors functioned far better and more consistently than everyone else in achieving behavior change goals. And how do you spot the top performers?
• Top performers know their stuff. They put regular and consistent effort into ensuring they excel at the technical aspects of their jobs. They work hard to hone their specific craft.
• Top performers focus on the right stuff. They contribute to tasks essential to the organization’s success. They earn direct access to critical assignments that the company values.
• Top performers build a reputation for being helpful. They are widely known and respected by others not because of their frequent contact, constant presence, charm or likability, but because they help others solve problems.
Effecting long-term behavior changes — in health, relationships, personal finances, career and business — is one of those seemingly simple problems that has puzzled researchers and scientists for ages, dwelling in the same level of vagueness as the cure for the common cold.
Change Anything, an evidence-based tome opened daringly, makes a compelling case that “a chosen few, learnable skills —not sheer gumption, gut or willpower — is what actually creates lasting change.” It likewise introduces and educates readers on those skill sets, and demonstrates how they have helped 5,000 people in their “Change Anything Labs” to apply these acquired abilities methodically to conquer an assortment of struggles, trials, and challenges.
These fearless searchers were looking to accelerate their careers, become financially or physically fit, save fraught relationships, thrive in the midst of organizational change, lose weight, stick with it and break free of addictions. Their success stories created highly relevant, empowering, and action-oriented models that you can use as you try to make changes in your life, with the intention and desire to motivate yourself to overcome all the marketing influences, cravings, lifelong habits and situational circumstances that weigh against the changes you’re trying to make.
The book’s authors are the principals of an A-list training firm engaged in the translation of strategies that help corporate clients implement billion-dollar changes into user-friendly systems that facilitate marked changes to organizational as well as individual problem areas. They called it the “Six Sources of Influence,” which can be used to push for healthy behavior.
• Love what you hate. It’s a personal motivation that allows you to tap into your existing desires and wants. It’s a source of influence that begs for answers to these questions: Do you take personal satisfaction from doing a required activity? Does enacting a vital behavior bring you pleasure? If not, how can you get yourself to do things you currently find despicable, uninteresting, offensive or agonizing?
As you move to change, free yourself from the idea that success will necessitate a lifetime of self-denial. You can take steps to change how you feel about both negative and positive choices by making your likely future relevant, touching, and authentic. To do so, the authors suggest considering these tactics: get a clear view of your most likely future; tell your story vividly using specific descriptive words that sum up where you are or where you are headed; be clear about the principles you hold dear, the qualities you are developing, and the standards you are adhering to; identify milestones along the way as you move to achieve your goal; and create your own personal motivation statement that will reconnect you to your reasons for changing.
• Do what you can’t. It’s a true test of your willpower and personal ability to focus on the need to learn new skills to promote change and practice the behavior. Investing in professional development is a key influence since new habits require new skills. You can start the process by scanning your own skills, deliberately developing greater proficiency in managing your emotions, and significantly increasing your chances of turning vital behaviors into vital habits. Hang with the hard workers. As such, the bad habits that hold you back will likely not be enabled or tolerated by others.
• Turn accomplices into friends. No resource is more powerful and accessible than the persuasion of the people who make up your circle. Have the social motivation to know the people who influence your life, and determine whether they are friends who help you meet your goals, or accomplices who sidetrack you from or unashamedly chip away at your change efforts.
The authors offered some tips to turn accomplices into friends: Take a look at how accomplices may be affecting your view of what’s normal, recognizing that if you continue to measure yourself against unhealthy or unrealistic “norms,” your change plan is at risk; hold a transformation conversation, explaining the role they’re playing in making change harder or less pleasant for you, and sharing how you’d like them to help you succeed; add new friends who are interested in supporting your change effort or new behaviors and; distance yourself from people who are unwilling to back you up.
• Implement change in your broadly shared standards. Public discussion allows for a healthy dialogue provided it is safe to talk about high stakes and controversial topics. “With help from your friends you can produce a force greater than the sum of your individual efforts. When used properly, it is this help or ‘social capital,’ which enables the power of your network of relationships,” the authors declare.
• Use carrots and the threat of losing the carrots. As you’re doing your best to improve your life, use incentives as a means of motivating healthy behavior. They are structural influences that can bolster willpower and peer pressure with extrinsic rewards, but with a fair warning that these incentives must be truly earned and used in moderation. Administering rewards and punishment is tricky. Thus you must rely on personal and social motivators. When you choose to use extrinsic rewards, make sure they are immediately linked to vital behaviors, with a full understanding that rewarding behaviors is much more important than rewarding outcomes.
• Control your space. The final source of influence focuses on your environment. The impact of the physical world on human behavior is quite profound. By examining the power of your surroundings, you enhance the opportunity for permanent behavioral alteration. You may consider the following tactics: create your own rules, and use them in conjunction with the other motivators; keep good things close and convenient and bad things distant and difficult; put up reminders that will keep you on track; structure good choices as the automatic option in your life, they make the process of change easier, and transform electronic devices and other tools into valuable change allies.
Based on the research implemented for the book, those who follow the template for change by learning the vital behaviors of top performers, and then engaging all six sources of influence are 10 times more likely to succeed. “When your change strategy is informed by good science, the differences in effectiveness are not incremental — they are exponential,” the authors state. Change Anything offers a perilous but confident promise indeed. Apply the principles and experience the sustainable change in your behavior and the noticeable improvement in your life!
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