Change means letting go.
Once you learn a set of behaviors that bring you #success, you usually keep doing them even if your situation changes. That makes sense! Why change something that’s working? And yet these actions that previously brought success may be the exact set of behaviors that are now keeping you stuck. Navigating the next set of challenges requires letting go of what once worked for you and learning a new set of skills and actions.
As an example, we are trained as children that working harder leads to better results, because school rewards us for effort and showing our work. And this strategy continues to work well early in our careers. Unfortunately, it works best on tractable well-defined problems, and as we advance in our careers, we spend more time in situations where defining the problem is the real challenge. Working harder without that clarity is ineffective and may even lead to burnout, as I once learned the hard way.
But it’s scary to let go of a behavior that once brought success. This is why personal growth is hard – change is uncomfortable!
When I am coaching somebody who feels stuck, it’s often because they are holding onto a behavior or strategy that is no longer effective in their situation. So I ask them “How does that behavior serve you?” Once they step back, they can start to let go of the autopilot response they had previously learned.
The hard part of change isn’t figuring out what to do, as there are plenty of books and videos to give you advice on what behaviors you should start. It’s creating space for the new behaviors by letting go of what you are already doing. Another example is people saying they want to exercise more or spend more time with their families…without ever considering what they will have to give up to enable that. What will they stop doing to create the time for their intended new #behavior? Letting go is the hard part.
What #change have you been intending to make in your life? What would you have to let go of in your current life to create the space for your intended change?
I explore this theme of “How are you the problem?” in my new book, You Have A Choice: Beyond Hard Work to Meaningful Impact, coming out next Monday, November 6th. This week, I will be posting insights from the book every day to give you a sneak peek into the contents. Click the bell on my profile to get notified about my new posts!
#youhaveachoice