How do you make changes with confidence?

Managing Change with Confidence

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Last month, I wrote about shame versus confidence; and reminded me that resolutions are often a bad idea (see Tips for Resolutions).  It’s perfectly natural this time of year to look forward and say, “I am going to do [insert change here] differently.” We set some sort of perfect ideal self up against our real, actual self, and then we fail ourselves, leading to a loss of confidence.  This month, I want to talk about managing change without berating yourself or losing confidence in whatever it is you have set out to achieve. Sometimes, like the “bird-dog” hatching out in the photo, you get unexpected but surprisingly fun results, if you treat yourself with compassion.

So, what if being kind to yourself becomes your one and only New Year’s Resolution?  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve said, “I’m going to go on a new diet and finally lose those unwanted 10 pounds,” or “I am going to read more non-fiction than fiction,” or “I am finally going to write that book.” Only to fall off the wagon, time and time again, then feel bad about my inability to stick with a program.  Where was my discipline?

In his book The Pursuit of Perfect (2009) Tal Ben-Shahar writes, “We routinely refuse to accept our own humanity…If your daughter did not earn first place in a competition, would their imperfect record diminish your love for them?  Probably not.  And yet when we ourselves fall short, we often regard ourselves as wholly inadequate, utter failures.” He refers to it as the “all or nothing” judgment: either we are completely perfect or we are completely imperfect. Either a world champion or a complete slouch that does not even try.  Much more likely that we are somewhere in between.

We all have a love/hate relationship with change. We love changes that make our lives easier, new inventions that save us time or make it more convenient to get something accomplished like smart phone apps to locate nearby restaurants with our favorite cuisine.  On the other hand, we detest change that is forced upon us by circumstance: the transfer by our employer to a new section of the country, the end of a relationship that we did not see coming. Forcing ourselves to change is also somewhere in between.

We give ourselves a goal, we fall short, lose confidence, and give up.  Why not just admit that making ourselves change is hard? That it is not the end of the world when we slide back to our old behaviors from time to time?  This does not mean we should give up. For every time we get back on track, it is often a little bit easier to stay the course a little bit longer.  This kinder path let’s us build confidence. Having some compassion for our failures can lead us to new self-discoveries.

Sometimes letting ourselves off the hook can create serendipitous connections. For the wordsmiths among us, the first noted use of “serendipity” in the English language was by British writer Horace Walpole (1717–1797).  He noted that it wasn’t just the unexpected thing that happened, but that there had to be an awareness (“sagacity”) to link together the unexpected with the old for a new understanding.  In his book Accidental Genius (2010), Mark Levy talks about the importance of disconnecting from old thoughts, then reframing them (which he calls “redirecting your attention”) to the same purpose.

How does this fit with managing change? Here are three simple examples from my own life.

Example 1:  Maybe I can stay on a diet easier if I just let myself stray from the daily grind once a week by eating a piece of pie. Going one step further, if I was being truly compassionate with myself, I could celebrate the body I have that is built to resist famine by being 10 pounds overweight (reframing).  Further still would be to stop thinking about being overweight (disconnecting) and focus on the things I do like (my green eyes). This could in turn open a thought up about the role of jealousy and inspire a poem.

Example 2: Maybe it’s easier to do my day-to-day work if I let myself relax with a novel in the evening or on weekends. Going one step further, accept that allowing my brain some time off actually helps it work better when I need it to be strategic (reframing). Further still is to stop justifying (disconnecting), and open up space to see how a story might mirror a client’s situation and give them a new way to see it.

Example 3: Maybe I will finally write that book if I just sit down to write for 20-30 minutes a day instead of looking for 3-4 days to write at a stretch (reframing).  Going one step further, say, “I will know when I am ready to write that book because I simply can’t keep it inside me any longer” (disconnecting).  Taking it further with self-kindness would be “It’s OK if I never write that book” and just by giving myself that safety valve, find a new way to open up the story, perhaps by telling it from a friend’s point of view.

Here’s the take away: Compassion for self is another way to keep your confidence high.

 

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