The Challenge with Change .. The Way Through It
Change is integral to our everyday experience. Yet ...
“When doctors tell their patients they will die if they don’t change their habits, only 1 in 7 will be able to do so”, per Robert Kegan’s book, Immunity to Change.
Only 1 in 7.
It’s mind-boggling that 6 of 7 patients do not change their habits to protect their lives even though their doctor says it will lead to their death.
Remaining stuck when something is screaming at you to change, or else, is not rational or life maintaining. But it's a perverse dilemma, and is more common than we may realize.
WHAT MAKES IT SO DIFFICULT to change, even in the face of dire consequences?
Let’s look at
4 factors restricting our ability to respond to necessary change.
The way through your challenging situation.
4 step strategy for generating the structure and help to reach out for, and find, your support(s).
4 FACTORS RESTRICTING our ability to respond to necessary change.
1. The pace and scope of change over the past 75 years has increased beyond measure.
The time-line for processing, understanding and generating cycles of change has been reduced from decades to months. In effect, we aren’t getting the time to develop the necessary skillsets in competency for keeping up to speed. This has also created stockpiles of unresolved change which complicates the chaos and confusion through which to navigate.
2. We’ve not been mentored in processing change, let alone rapid change.
Our recent lifestyle has long disconnected us from nature and its learning opportunities. During earlier times, we directly experienced the cycles of change in all areas of our lives. In the lifecycles of our family, we were often present for the births of our siblings to the deaths of our elders, including all the cycles in between. This scope of experience was extended to the changing growing cycles of our food chain which at times would be unexpected and severe. And so on, ...
Further, there were mentors of experience who guided us through the ongoing process of change, both familiar and unexpected.
3. Being locked in tunnel-vision by fixed beliefs.
Having a sufficient degree of consistency about how we see, process and do things provides a needed stability for getting though our day.
However being locked in tunnel-vision will significantly restrict the lens though which we view and process our situation. It limits our ability to see what is hiding right in front of us.
Tunnel-vision can be generated by fixed beliefs that we already understanding all the dynamics about something. Or believing the situation is surely beyond our ability to understand and manage, let alone resolve. In effect, this greatly restricts our interest and ability to see the changing playing field as clearly as we need to.
4. Denial that an overwhelming situation exits, which reinforces ignoring it.
An overwhelming situation usually provokes an extreme reaction. Sometimes we become preoccupied with it, yet also frozen about our ability to process it.
We also experience an impulse to block it from our reality. We can’t allow it to exist for us because it is beyond our ability to face, process and deal with, or so we believe and fear.
This reaction is only a partially conscious process. We have minimal awareness about doing this, and why.
It is also a survival process to enable the time to pull ourselves together enough to then deal with our situation.
What often happens, however, is we get stuck in denial while continuing to ignore it as effectively as we can. So nothing changes. We then have to tolerate the ongoing effects of the situation.
This becomes a complicated and all consuming process. We then have little bandwidth to re-group with supports to help us re-stabilize for dealing with the overwhelming situation.
So ... THERE’S ONLY 1 in 7.
THE WAY THROUGH your challenging situation.
What about all of this is speaking with you? It can be useful to re-read these 4 factors. What insights and feelings emerge? This is a subtle process not to be rushed, even though it's about a deeply personal process we’d usually rather avoid.
In what area(s) of your life, personal or work, are you experiencing a daunting challenge? It could be an ongoing situation or something that recently emerged. Does it feel beyond your ability to understand and manage or resolve? Do you want to create progress but feel stuck, not knowing how to stop-the-bleeding, let alone generate a solution? So have you kind-of given-up about it?
It is crazy-making to be stuck in the cross-hairs of a daunting situation that has to get resolved. Yet this is a time is when we have the responsibility to reach out for needed support(s). The problem isn’t just going away because we want it to. We have to find a way to manage, into progressively resolving, it.
But when we need support the most is often when it is most difficult to reach for it. Dealing with the daunting challenge, including attempts to ignore it, can demand much or all our time and energy. It can be exhausting and leave us mentally depleted, as well as emotionally raw and vulnerable.
Reaching out for support in these situations requires a level of strength and determination to manage through the vulnerability. But it’s all been exhausted in the struggle.
When facing daunting change, we don’t generate significant change on our own because we need support. That’s why 6 of the 7 didn’t change. They were trying to do it on their own. They continued in their fixed patterns with what they had been doing because they didn’t have the level of support they needed.
Which one are you? ARE YOU the 1 in 7?
4 STEP STRATEGY for generating the structure and help to reach out for your support(s).
Who in your current inner circle will you reach out to for help in finding the significant support that you are needing.
What continues or intensifies in your challenging situation if nothing changes? Drilling deeply into this question is an essential step. I find it is often necessary to break through the inertia that is keeping you stuck. I recommend doing it with someone you trust, more than 1x, to fully realize the factors and impact on you and your situation.
Commit 100% to finding the support you need. If your commitment is less, then continue processing #2 like your life depends upon it. Otherwise you will continue being buried in what is currently consuming you.
Continue utilizing your current inner circle as a sounding board, with accountability, as you research, reach out, find, and enter the relationship with your significant support(s).
WE NEED SUPPORT TO CHANGE!
Taking Action: With all your pressures and non stop activity, schedule now when you will reach out to someone in your current inner circle of trust to employ the above strategy in a way that serves you.
“AND THEN THE DAY CAME when the risk to remain tight in a bud was greater than the risk it took to bloom” Anais Nin
I look forward to your comments and questions which can help shape future articles.
FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
. Follow Your Heart .. Through Life’s Challenges, Part 2
. Piercing Through Fear
. Mindfulness for the Samurai Leader
. Embodying an Unwavering Heart.
. Reigniting Your Passion and Flow
. Reclaiming Personal Power
. From Tunnel Vision … To Seeing the Playing Field More Clearly
NOTE: During August and September I’ll be posting articles on the second and fourth Tuesdays.
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Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Living with Fierce Authenticity, 2014
Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Becoming your Destiny, 2017