Creating Lasting Transformation: The Nature of Change (part I)
The turn of the year — in particular — incites a strong motivation for transformation (“this year’s going to be different!”). We tackle change fueled by optimism that’s based on our motivation. Yet, inevitably, we fall off the wagon, which sets off self-judgment around willpower and the strength of our desire. This motivation-driven method is both ineffective and demoralizing. And, contrary to what our negative self-talk might indicate, the issue is not a lack of motivation.
What actually gets in the way of lasting transformation are unconscious beliefs that drive behavior. Your struggle to create a meditation habit isn’t because you don’t want it enough, but rather because you’re prioritizing sleeping in (a value of rest) or resisting a rigid scheduled activity (a value of freedom). Transformation also does not involve uncovering the ideal solution; your struggle to meditate regularly isn’t because you haven’t found the “perfect” app or the ideal time of day to practice.
Transformation is a process that requires intentional exploration and making ongoing conscious choices. To support you in making effective changes, I’m launching a 6-part series on the steps of lasting transformation. As I walk you through each of the steps to transformation, I’ll equip you with ways to coach yourself in addition to explaining how a supportive partner — like a coach — can help create the conditions for change. The process begins with understanding the nature of transformation.
How to Transform
While new situations tend to feel ripe for change, it’s important to understand that the starting point of transformation is not a blank slate. Rather, the starting point is the current state situation. Lasting transformation occurs when we iterate on the existing situation with clear intentions. This means taking into account your current context and accepting yourself as you are (which is a beginner in terms of this change). For your meditation habit, this could mean approaching the change with a lot of generosity and flexibility — aiming to practice a few times a week or even simply being mindful for a moment or two throughout the day.
Lasting transformation requires a lot of exploration before getting to the action of change. In the design process, we begin with a period of discovering new possibilities by doing things like brainstorming, performing research, and doing an audit of the current state to get a clear picture of the current context. These activities are referred to as “divergence” because we’re expanding well beyond the initial idea before trying to solve it.
It’s for this reason that, while coaching clients often come with a specific challenge (“working with this colleague stresses me out” or “I feel overwhelmed by my workload”), we don’t immediately try to solve that specific issue. Rather, we spend time uncovering the client’s motivations, values, and dreams. As other challenges come up in their lives (whether at work or in their personal life), we use those as opportunities to continue to learn. This creative exploration is done with the original issue in-mind.
The design process of identifying and testing solutions is referred to as “convergence” as we become more focused and specific on solving the problem. This is a place we naturally go because we’re conditioned and rewarded for being problem-solvers. However, if we skip immediately to convergence, we’re working with the same, played-out information yet expecting a different outcome. Divergence allows us to recognize and then question existing constraints in order to approach challenges in new, creative, and effective ways. The motivation-driven approach to change doesn’t work because it skips divergence and goes straight to convergence.
How this might play out in our example of starting a meditation habit is that, through exploration, we might find that the underlying desire is for a more quiet mind. This, along with knowing your values of freedom and rest opens up many new possibilities — maybe the change isn’t specifically about meditation, but about allowing yourself to slow down more; or perhaps bedtime meditation is a fit to support your value of rest. The more rich information uncovered during exploration, the more expansive the possibilities.
The majority of the steps of lasting transformation are exploratory
Throughout the process you’ll be utilizing the three main tools of human-centered leadership:
Self-awareness: increasing mindfulness of your values and how they drive behavior
Self-management: committing to run experiments and consciously choosing to repeatedly act with intention
Self-acceptance: having compassion for where you are now and your imperfections along the process
Let’s Get Started
Set aside some time to reflect on a lasting change that you’ve made and how it fits with the process described above by answering the following questions:
For the transformation you made, how did you work with the current state?
During the process of transforming, how did you explore (diverge)?
How did self-awareness, self-management, and self-acceptance factor into your transformation?
In the next installment, I’ll share how to begin the process, starting with clearly identifying the change you want to make. If you want to get a head start on exploring the methodology, check out these Dare to Lead podcasts (part 1 & part 2) that initially sparked the idea for the series. I also highly recommend reading Andrea Mignolo’s article Building a Relationship with Change which dispels common myths around change.