At some point, it becomes time to get clear about what is expected during change. With compassion, try sharing these thoughts with your team.
1. Changing isn’t an emotion. It doesn’t matter how you feel about changing to meet the requests or demands of someone else. You will never feel like it. The good news is that change is a decision, not an emotion. You make this decision to stay employed and contribute to the greater good for all.
Here are some recent observations and musings about what it is taking to get people to change these days. These points are based on what I see is lacking in many change efforts and what has worked.
1. Help your resistant folks understand that change keeps the brain young. It’s good for not just the company but for their own survival. The brain grows when it learns difficult things, not easy stuff. Besides, there aren’t any places they can go to work anymore that won’t expect you to have a digital brain. So get over it, essentially.
Changes you’re going through at work seem never-ending. Some days I bet you just want to lie down and let it all go by. I get it.
I wasn’t acting or feeling very pilgrim-y during the first couple of weeks of my 40-day pilgrimage across Spain to Santiago de Compostela. The trek was more difficult than I had anticipated, with long daily walks of 20-30km of ups and downs in the rain, snow and everything in between. My pack was heavy, my shoes hurt, my toenails were off. I was tempted to check into a hostel and check out six weeks later and saying that I had done it. Who would know?
Tis the season to be jolly? Not for everyone. If it’s not jolly for you, you’re not alone and there is nothing wrong with you.
The top reason why it’s hard? Social comparison. You look around at all the fun that others are having or pretending to have, and your life sucks. You check Facebook and note all the fun everybody else seems to be having. If you’re kind of lonely or disconnected anyway, you tend to get even more so and you note that, frequently.
I love that quote from Plato. Reality is in doing, not wishing or wanting. Making the Decision. Starting. Persevering. When Diana Nyad was asked how she accomplished the swim from Cuba to Florida, she responded: “Just do it, find a way, never, ever quit.” Sounds easy.
Start with What – Not How
“How did she do that?” OMG, that’s amazing – how do you do all that you do?” Questions involving ‘how’ lead you into a jungle of confusion. Never ask how. Only decide what. In an ideal life plan, you’ll have created your matrices of overriding life visions (e.g. happiness and joy, creative and meaningful work, health and fitness), then broad actions that will lead to the fulfillment of those visions, then specific actions that can be accomplished now. Always start with the vision, then work back to broad action. When an action shows up that is part of the vision, make a decision to do it. It wouldn’t have shown up if it weren’t meant for you. Make the decision to do it, despite all reasonable evidence that it wouldn’t be possible for you (the hows don’t line up).
Burnout is a gradual loss of energy that develops from wanting to succeed, caring a lot, and lacking a turn-off switch that makes you stop when you’ve done enough. You’re probably even missing the system that monitors “enough.” Here’s a link to a quick assessment to find your Zone: Safe, Caution, or Danger.
Burnout creeps up, stealing energy as it gobbles up your life. The best way to deal with it is to prevent it.
In this article are the seven usual steps. They’re not symptoms–just a description of the progression of the disease. The steps reflect the assessment.
This morning an article appeared in the NY Times that I can’t get out of my mind.
Fernando Miteff was a graffiti artist until his mom threw out all his materials (“get a job!”). This powerful gesture threw him into despair where he stayed for almost 30 years. One day a friend asked him: ‘Do you believe in God?’ He said, ‘Of course.’ His friend told him to be serious for one moment a day for 30 days. Every morning, he said, ask God a simple question: “Can you please give me the information I’m seeking?”
Change demands energy! Here are five energy wasters that seem subtle, soft, and innocuous. But they are choices that absorb a lot of energy. If you make changes in any of these areas, you’ll have a lot more energy to spend on making worthwhile changes.
1. Don’t do anything for anyone over the age of 18 that they can and should be doing for themselves. This behavior weakens the recipient and usually causes resentment in the caregiver. Resentment is powerfully disabling and leads to other bad habits you don’t need. If you are rescuing anyone over 18, you are not helping them. Rather, you are meeting your own unmet needs and it is time to meet those from other sources.
Next time you announce a new incentive program, or the possibility of an award, start measuring productivity, well-being and satisfaction month by month until the actual award period, and for a couple of months afterward.
The ANTICIPATION of a reward feels better than receiving the actual award and is more motivating. It is a quirk in the structure of the brain’s reward system.
Since my job is to help people in organizations let go of the past and move through ambiguity, I need to show I can myself keep moving despite fear. Sometimes not so easy!
Because of my (irrational) fear of being struck by lightning while flying in my single-engine airplane, I (unnecessarily) avoided flying in weather that most pilots would find completely safe. Knowing that my aircraft was designed to handle lightning didn’t help. Intellectual and emotional knowing are vastly different. Irrational fears (such as those borne by so many in today’s workplace) aren’t evaporated by just words.
This is a little encouragement and reminder message. These four steps have boosted me in slow times, maybe they’ll encourage you too.
Stop comparing yourself to what other people have done. Think of the distance you’ve already covered. You always do the best you can, so there are no failures and there are no mistakes.
Every now and then, with each new step, say “Thank you for my freedom.” With every breath say: “Thank you for my power.”
You’re so busy, who’s got time to be creative? But… that’s exactly what we need to do more
than ever. Here are five quick and easy ways to shake things up.
Imagine your life on a video camera, and imagine that you are someone else watching the show. What feedback can you give?
Make a small change both physically (move your lamp – change anything). Change one small habit, maybe the order in which you do something. Like brushing your teeth or starting the car. Not kidding, small breaks in routines can trigger new associations.
One of the first lessons of aeronautics is “whatever pushes against you, lifts you up.” The wind against the underside of the wings helps the airplane fly. Similarly, what we have to push against helps us grow. All nature follows the same physical principles. Everything that is hard for us makes us better.
Being wrong creates the same energy dynamic. If you can tolerate it, being wrong also stretches your mental boundaries, creates friction and growth. Being right is mildly reinforcing only following a struggle.
If you’re going to do something, do it 100%. If you are going to procrastinate, do it 100% so it becomes a pure activity.
If you a) avoid an unwanted task by procrastinating and b) do something rather pleasant and mildly fulfilling during that time (tidy up, make labels, make another cup of tea) you are double-dipping into the Rewards Jar with both positive and negative reinforcement at play.
Procrastination. If procrastination is causing you problems, it might be because you make it so rewarding. Whatever you find rewarding will be repeated. Here’s an escape route for you.
Worry is Epidemic. Worry is Expensive. Worry is Exhausting. Worrying is costly in its psychological toll, and in lost time and productivity. One recent study in which subjects were given frequent but random alerts during the day and told to write down their thoughts indicated 47-55% of the time they were worried about something. Worry is psychologically draining, leads to inefficient divided attention, and doesn’t lead to anything positive.
There are no answers to Robin Williams’ suicide, only questions.
Little is known of Robin’s family history of depression, but there are reports of childhood loneliness, shyness, sadness, and melancholia. He played alone for hours. Did the inability of his parents to allow him to attach to them lead to a lifetime of attachment-seeking through substances and entertainment?
Little is known of his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, who as a Ford executive responsible for the midwest traveled a great deal, and appeared to be distant emotionally and physically absent. William’s only mention of his father was when he recalled his father’s wrath when Robin bought his first foreign car rather than a Ford. Did his inability to identify with him lead to his inability to form intimate enduring attachments to women?
Suicide of a loved one can blanket us with an oppressive morass of confusion and guilt for the rest of our lives, if untreated. Of all deaths, it is the most difficult to accept and the most intractable in its response to treatment.
Know these things:
1. No matter what, it was not your fault. He did what he did because of his own demons, not because of you. There was nothing you could have done.
Anything for anyone over the age of 18 that they can and should be doing for themselves. This behavior weakens the recipient and usually causes resentment in the caregiver. Resentment is powerfully disabling an leads to other bad habits you don’t need. If you are rescuing anyone over 18, you are not helping them. Rather, you are meeting your own unmet needs and it is time to meet those from other sources.
Ever wonder why you spent so much on that item, or why you even bought it at all? Frankly, most salespeople don’t know why you did either. Psychological theory: meet advertising and marketing. Together, you create psychologically compelling forces that are hard to resist.
How does worry cause illness? Controlled fMRI studies from Harvard and replicated elsewhere, have shown that imagining an event lights up the identical areas of the brain with the same intensity as actually experiencing the event ... and both events produce identical hormones (Ganis et al., 2004). In this way, chronic stress, in which one imagines alarming events, can create disease in a compromised area of the body.
Under chronic stress, which often involves guilt, worry, resentment or anxiety, heart rate, and blood pressure rise and stabilize at a higher level, arterial plaque is deposited, substances such as acetylcholine, adrenaline, sugars, fats, thyroxin, cortisol circulate freely, fat is deposited at the waist.
With the skills that people need now and the inspiration they need for the future.
Cut through resistance, instill optimism, and lift everyone to a place of hope and courage.
