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Change is essential for your growth and development as a person and an achiever. Without change, you are assured of staying just the way you are, doing things just the way you have always done them, and performing at the level that you always have. Your ability to maximize your performance and achieve well-being depends on your ability to change. Whether being a better leader or parent, building your confidence, committing to a fitness program, or being more compassionate, change is the most important--and rewarding--thing you will ever do.
So why is change so difficult? And how can change be fostered?
Obstacles to Change
There are four obstacles that prevent us from changing (or even trying to change):
- Baggage: The 'baggage' we bring to adulthood from our childhoods that causes us to think, feel, and behave based on who we were as children rather than who we are as adults (e.g., low self-esteem, perfectionism, fear of failure, need for control, need to please).
- Habits: Deeply ingrained habits in the way we think, experience emotions, and behave arise out of this baggage, much like when athletes continue to practice bad technique, they become very good at the bad technique and that bad technique is what is executed in competition.
- Fear: Fear of the unknown or the fear of failure ("I've been this way for a long time and I've learned to deal with it, so it's not worth the risk.").
- Environment: We create an environment (e.g., people, surroundings, activities) that helps us best manage our baggage, habits, and fears, but may also discourage change.
All four obstacles have the net effect of keeping you who you are and where you are. You don't change. You don't perform up to your abilities. You don't experience well-being. And you don't achieve your goals.
Foundation of Change
Yes, change is difficult, despite the "quick and without any effort" claims of motivational speakers and self-help books. I'm sorry to say that change just doesn't work that way. In attempting to change, you are swimming against the tide of many years of baggage, old habits, and fear. But if you can overcome those obstacles and commit yourself to a new direction in your life, amazing things can happen.
- Epiphany: Because change is so difficult, it must come from a deep and personal place inside of you. Change starts with a simple, yet powerful, realization: "I just can't continue down this same road any longer."
- Courage: The willingness to acknowledge aspects of yourself that you may not know about or may not like, and to confront “bad” emotions you might feel as you change. Courage enables you to choose to reject your old self, embrace your present self, and chart a new course in your life.
- Leap of faith: There is no certainty in change; you don't know if, when, or how you might change. The only way to overcome this uncertainty is to take a leap of faith, which involves a fundamental trust in the vision of who, what, and where you want to be in the future, and a deeply held belief that you can realize that vision.
- Determation: Change takes an unwavering, moment-to-moment commitment to resist the obstacles and pursue your goals.
Process of Change
The steps I described above set the stage for change, but the real work lies ahead. Change can be scary, tiring, frustrating, and repetitious (as well as interesting and rewarding). And change takes time. How much, you might ask. It depends on your ability to remove the four obstacles to change I discussed above and your ability to make change a minute-to-minute priority in your life.
- Explore your inner world:
True change requires a deep understanding of who you are. These explorations resolve the mystery of why you are who you are and liberate you to move from the road you have felt stuck on to the road of your choosing.
- Identify obstacles: Identify the baggage, habits, fears, and environment that are keeping you from your goals. Understanding these obstacles shows you what has been holding you back for so long and gives you clarity on what you need to change to realize your goals.
- Change goals: Establishing clear objectives of the changes you want to make will help you focus your efforts and direct your energy toward those changes. These goals should identify what areas you want to change, how you will change them, and the ultimate outcome you want to achieve.
- Action steps: Describe the particular actions you will take to achieve your change goals. Action steps give you the specific tools you need and give you alternative actions that counter your old baggage, habits, fears, and environment.
- Forks in the road: Taking the action steps and achieving your change goals depends on recognizing forks in the road (i.e., feel bad, do bad or feel good, do good), having the determination to resist your baggage, habits, fears, and environment, and choosing to take the good road.
Payoff
There is an immense payoff for your commitment and efforts to change: A life-altering shift in who you are and the direction that your life will take; maximizing performance; experiencing well-being; achieving your life goals. As a former client told me so poignantly: “I realized that I would never have to go back to the way I used to live my life, and I have never felt such happiness!”
Power of Prime
Prime Perrformance
Well-being
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