Overcoming Your Immunity To Change!
Launching Teacher Leadership: An Institute for Teacher Leaders and Administrators
June 12, 2014
Susan MacDonald, Inspiring New Perspectives,
www.schooltransformation.com
and
www.inspiringnewperspectives.com
Change Quotes
Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
Frank Herbert
Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts
The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.
Colin Wilson
Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.
Keri Russell
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
Carl Jung
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.
Maya Angelou
Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.
Margaret Mead
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy
Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again.
Bikram Choudhury
It doesn’t matter where you are, you are nowhere compared to where you can go.”
Bob Proctor
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
Wayne Gretzy
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
Maria Robinson
All great changes are preceded by chaos.
Deepak Chopra
You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
A.A. Milne
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Victor Frankl
The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.
George Bernard Shaw
What Is Minds At Work ®
Self-Inventory
1. Name a goal that is very important for you to accomplish. Enter this into column #1 of the printout.
If nothing immediately comes to mind, think about what bothers you most about yourself (e.g., maybe you don't say "no" enough; or you don't tell people when you disagree on important matters; or you give yourself a hard time too often); or think about your wishes for yourself (e.g., maybe you wish you could delegate more frequently; or you long for sharing your real feelings and thoughts with more people; or you wish you could take things less personally). Now turn that bother or wish into a specific goal ("I want to say "no" more often and do more of what's on my own list"; "I want to be a better delegator and be less stressed"). Enter this into column #1 of the printout.
2. Acknowledge your part in the problem. List all that you do and don't do that undermines your progress on your goal. Be as honest and precise as possible (not it beat up on yourself, but because these behaviors will help you to see your immunity to change in the next step). Example: My goal is to be more straight-forward in telling people what I really think. What do I do that works against that? I sugar coat my words; I withhold what I really think; I say something once and if the person doesn't respond, I let it go. Enter your answer into column #2 of the printout.
3. Discover Your Competing Commitments.3a. Filling in your Worry Box: Ask yourself, "What fears come up when I imagine doing the opposite of all that I wrote in column 2, when I imagine doing the opposite of these things that undermines my progress?" Example continued: When I imagine saying things directly and follow-up on that (the opposite of all that I said in column 2), I worry that I'll say the wrong thing, and that people will think I don't know what I'm talking about, that I'm uninformed, maybe even dumb. (Different people will have different fears, e.g., another person might worry that he will make people uncomfortable, and they won't like that or him, and someone else could worry that people will, in turn, be more frank with her, and she's not sure she wants to hear that.) Enter your answer into the small box labeled 'worry box' in column #3 of the printout.
3b. Seeing the 'brakes' you apply to your own goal: The Competing Commitments. It's understandable that you have these worries, but we want to invite you to consider something that may seem odd at first. Consider that you are not only "worrying" (a relatively passive activity) about these things, but that you are actively committed (not necessarily consciously) to making sure the things you worry about never occur. This is the heart of a third-column commitment. You do not merely passively "have a fear"; you actively behave in ways that very effectively, even brilliantly, protect you from having your fear come true. In the space below the Worry Box, re-state each fear you named into a statement that expresses an active "commitment" to keeping your fear from happening. Example continued: "I worry I'll say the wrong thing, and that people will think I'm dumb" becomes this: "I am committed to be seen by others as being smart, or easy-going, or likeable."(Or "I worry that my being more straight-forward will lead people to be too critical in return" becomes this: "I am committed to people withholding the negative feedback they have for me.")
Enter each re-stated worry into column #3 under the "worry box".
The immunity to change revealed. Now look across these three columns as a whole. Do you see a kind of system, or dynamic equilibrium at work? Do you see yourself with one foot on the gas (your urgent column 1 goal) and one foot on the brake (your 3rd column, competing commitments)? This is the immunity to change. You should see exactly now why you are not making the progress you want, and it is not because of the reasons you have probably thought. It is not because you are a weakling, or lack discipline, or are an 'old dog' who can't learn 'new tricks,' or any of the host of depreciative things you have thought about yourself, Rather, there is a part of you that wants to accomplish an important goal and another part of you that is expending just as much energy working against that goal—but for a very good reason: You are (understandably) trying to take good care of yourself, to protect yourself from what feels like disaster—just the work of any "immune system."
If the picture before you feels powerful, intriguing, or even just interesting you have taken an important first step to overturning your immunity to change.
Resources:
Minds at Work Website: http://mindsatwork.com/
Business Digest Article, Immunity to Change: http://mindsatwork.com/images/resources/resources-BusinessDigest2009.pdf
Oprah Article You Don’t Need More Willpower: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Professors-Kegan-and-Lahey-on-the-Challenges-of-Change
The Real Reason People Won’t Change Article: http://www.osu.edu/eminence/assets/files/Kegan_Lahey_HBR.pdf
Continuum of Progress
Envision what full success looks like in achieving your Column 1 goal as you imagine no longer being captive of your Big Assumption(s).
Column 1 Goal & Big Assumption(s) / 1st Steps Forward / Significant Progress / SuccessGoal:
Big Assumptions: