Tag: change

Open the door for change

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New Year’s resolutions are known more for their grand ambition than their rate of success. Most of the time, we make resolutions to change ourselves: lose weight, get fit, quit smoking, make a career change, learn a language, and so on. But research shows that many people scale back their goals almost immediately, fewer than 50% are still working toward them after 6 months, and fewer than 10% after a year.  I’m not much of a believer in those kinds of odds.

But I’ve been thinking that this year, I might resolve, not to change, but to accept change more gracefully, especially those changes that are thrust upon me. What kinds of changes am I talking about?

  • Changes in the best-laid plans
  • Changes in my neighborhood such as new roads, traffic lights and buildings
  • Changes in my body that come with age
  • Changes in my work life
  • Changes in the people I know and love
  • Changes when a loved moves away, or … moves back

I can choose how I react to the events, big and small, that upset the balance of everyday life. Do I kick and scream, or do I invite them in? Most of the time, these events are out of my control, so why waste valuable energy fighting them?

Soren Gordhamer says this concept of inviting can be applied to challenging situations. He writes, “…we can think, Why are they doing this? …. Or we can look inward, pay attention to our mind and body, and inquire, What creative response wants to arise in this situation?” Inviting “makes more room for clarity and ease of mind”, even in the presence of “strong emotions”.

One of those strong emotions is often fear, because the unknown can be powerfully scary. Dostoyevski said that change is “What people fear most.”  But instead of asking, “Why is this happening [to me],” ask “How can I benefit from this change, or at least make the best of it?” Calling upon past experience, learning everything possible about a new situation,  and having faith in your ability to handle it can ease the transition.

Much like the practice of mindful meditation, this way of approaching change is an ongoing process. When we meditate, we are encouraged not to judge thoughts that arise, but to notice them, and then turn our attention back to the breath. Even if other thoughts come up hundreds of times, we always go back to the breath. In the same way, most of us will never reach the point of accepting change with grace 100% of the time – but that doesn’t mean we stop trying.

So I resolve in 2012, to continue to:

welcome the opportunities that come with change,

look for the silver lining in adversity,

meet challenges with courage and creativity,

allow other people the space to change,

appreciate my ability to learn and adapt,

and be happy just as I am.

Happy new year!

Everyone else should change, right?

jilrobLeave a comment

Why is it that even though we know how difficult it is for us to change ourselves, we still think we will be successful in getting other people to change their behaviors? So we knock our heads against the wall trying to persuade, cajole, bribe, or strong-arm someone else into changing. It doesn’t usually work.

I read some advice once that the only influence parents can really have with children once they hit their late teens is by being a good listener and being a role model.  Doesn’t that apply to anyone in our lives whose behavior we’d like to influence? The idea of living by example is common to many religious practices and moral choices, from Christianity to veganism. Letting your actions speak for you, practicing instead of preaching is a mindset that is difficult to embrace, but perhaps more powerful in the long run.

Sometimes when we adopt positive changes in our own lives, the first thing we want to do is tell everyone else about them and then urge them to do the same. What we don’t realize is that usually the people we are telling don’t want to hear it.  But we’re too impatient to wait for them to come to their own realizations about changing. Perhaps we also doubt our own ability to influence others strictly by our actions; we seem to believe that we can only convince someone by overtly teaching and badgering. We need to learn to trust our power to influence by action.

Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler are social scientists who have studied “network phenomena”, and how they relate to things like smoking cessation, the spread of epidemics, the spread of innovation, and even the incidence of loneliness. Their work shows that social networks (not online social networks, but all the interconnections people have with each other in families, workplaces, schools and other groups) are powerful entities. People at the center of a network, those with the most interconnections, have the ability to influence and predict the spread of ideas, disease, and behaviors throughout the network.

For instance, Christakis and Fowler demonstrated that groups of interconnected people in a network tend to stop smoking at the same time, whether their social ties are close or distant. Another study they conducted showed that if one person in a network feels lonely on one additional day per week, then the incidence of loneliness increases among others in the network that month. They have written about the application of the research to other emotions and behaviors as well, both positive and negative.

The power of a social network is pretty awesome, and holds a lot of promise for being able to disseminate change. Another, related method that shows promise is what is called the “social norms” approach. The philosophy behind it is that since humans are group-oriented, and since social norms guide group behavior, it is important that people know what the norm is. Often, people have erroneous opinions about the norms, especially young people.

We’ve all heard teenagers say, “But everybody is doing [fill in the blank], right? Research has shown, though, that just by spreading the word of what the majority behavior really is, risky behaviors can be reduced.  So telling kids that the majority of young people do not engage in binge drinking, do not think smoking is cool, and do report bullying to teachers can reduce all of those behaviors in the group – better than the scare tactics that have traditionally been used.

We’ve all heard that “actions speak louder than words”. The bottom line is that people want to belong to the group, and they want to be like people they admire. Live by your values and do the right thing. It will have an effect on those around you.

“A change is gonna come”

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My favorite line about change is one I saw a few years ago on the sign at a church near my house. It said, “When you change how you look at things, the way things look changes.” I love mulling over that line — it’s all about perspective, isn’t it?

Sometimes we choose to change, sometimes we expect change, and sometimes change is thrust upon us. But how we deal with it, from person to person or situation to situation, runs the gamut from graciousness to grumpiness to downright kicking-and-screaming resistance. The only constants are that change will happen and that we have a choice in how we react to it.

All change is potentially stressful, even if we welcome it, because it throws us off balance and out of our comfort zone. But since we cannot grow in our comfort zone, the ability to see change as a challenge or an opportunity has a lot of potential. It depends on what kind of meaning we attach to the change.

Daniel Gilbert, in his book, Stumbling on Happiness, wrote that “When the experience we are having is not the experience we want to be having, our first reaction is to go out and have a different one…It is only when we cannot change the experience that we look for ways to change our view of the experience…We find silver linings only when we must…”

Another way to change our view of experiences is to cultivate equanimity, or calmness.  In the August 2010 issue of Yoga Journal, Frank Jude Boccio talked about this quality of equanimity .  It is a “state of even-minded openness that allows for a balanced, clear response to all situations, rather than a response born of reactivity or emotion.” In other words, developing this quality within ourselves enables us see the truth of our circumstances more clearly, and to deal with them more appropriately.

An important aspect of cultivating equanimity is recognizing that we can’t control everything, much as we might want to. So it helps us accept the things that cannot be changed, as well as the things that aren’t important enough to change. It helps curb our tendencies to judge and resist the way things are.

Conversely, there are times when we want to make changes, and we rush to do too much at once. The starting point for all change is accepting where we are, and believing in our ability to change and to accomplish our goals. The most achievable goals involve small steps that, one after another, add up to big change. I always tell the people I work with at health fairs not to change too much at one time. Wait for one small change to become a habit, and then move on to something else.

Herbert Benson says that “change in our lives, because of our wiring and conditioned responses, is gradual and cumulative.” If you learned one way of doing something, you can unlearn it, but it will take time. So take a breath along with that first small step, and be patient with yourself.