Everywhere I look, I hear gooroos talk about the need to embrace change, that embracing change is all about “getting control of yourself.”
Given that less than 5% of our mental activity is conscious, I do think that’s a highly unlikely and a bit naive directive. How can you get control of something you are not consciously aware of?
The Science Behind Humans and Change
Our human minds are specifically designed to avoid change at any cost. A myriad of powerful instincts are all focused on keeping us in the known. Driving us to stay in the comfort zone of the way we’ve always done it, where safety lives.
No pop phrase is going to guide us to adapt our mind design to embrace anything. Certainly not change.
That said, thanks to modern science, we are discovering and defining the techniques that do allow us all to adapt our instincts. To literally change our anti-change programming.
How COOL is that?
The Bottom Line
We can use the ever-expanding knowledge of our human minds to step into change. But there’s another challenge.
Deciding to use that knowledge requires each of us to be willing to change what we’ve been programmed to believe about our human selves.
I guess we really do have to embrace change to even begin…
Embrace Change and Experience Your Anti-Change Mind
Want to embrace change and experience just how strong your anti-change programming is? Try one of the following experiments:
- Remember when you played church and steeple with your hands as a kid? Try this. Clasp your hands together in front of you. Notice which thumb is on top. NOW, unclasp and re-clasp your hands with the OTHER THUMB on top. Feels weird, right? That’s because your mind isn’t wired for this tiny shift in behavior. Think about this… if you feel weird with this insignificant change, how does your mind react to BIG changes? Now do this… clasp and unclasp and re-clasp your hands in the new way over and over again. In no time you’ll feel as comfortable in the new way as you did in the old. Yep, you just changed a tiny expectation for how things are.
- Now try this. Go shuffle your desk or closet. Just move things to the opposite sides, reversing the way you’re organized. Then, go on with your life. Pay attention to how you feel as you get accustomed to the new order of things. Yep, that frustration you feel, that discomfort is another example of your mind telling you to go back to the way it was. And all you did was change a tiny piece of your every day life.
- Want to experience the power of simple changes in your business? Here’s a simple trick that I call Shuffle the Deck. Take a report you use all the time – pipeline, cash flow, whatever. Now – flip the report so that it’s formatted in a completely new and different way. If you’ve been using numbers, go to a bar chart. if a bar chart, go to line graphs or numbers. Our minds get used to specific formats and stop inputting all the data from familiar formats. That’s why we don’t see subtle warning shifts, until they become large enough to be noticed (and large enough to be a big problem we didn’t see coming.) By continuously shifting the format/look of your data/reports, you force your mind to actually look at every piece of the data as if it were a new input. The result? You notice subtle changes and nuances that you would’ve missed in the past. You get a head start on opportunities and threats, before they impact your results.
By the way, you’ll notice a bit of discomfort with each step to embrace change. That’s your mind telling you it likes the status quo better, pushing you to return to the known and comfortable:)
Think about this. If you’re uncomfortable with these minor environmental changes, imagine how your mind responds to big changes.
Embrace that for a fresh perspective.
