Change Catalysts

The Catalysts for Change Include 9 Processes You Might Already Be Using

Today we will focus on three of the nine

Transcript Edited Slightly for Readability

Good morning, my name is Kim Harris and I used to drive myself absolutely crazy wanting to make changes.

I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but I’d get myself all riled up. I’d be thinking that’s it I’m going to make this change; I’m going to start exercising tomorrow and then tomorrow would come and I would find myself pressing this snooze button and staying in bed.

I believe that knowing the change process and knowing about it, and how you can support yourself with a change, by understanding the mechanics of change, it can aid you in making any kind of change that you can conceive of, in your life.

Knowing the change process and understanding how you can support yourself with it, can aid you in making any kind of change in your life.

Kim Harris

There are obviously some really common ones too, for example, increase our income. It’s crunch time at the moment with the economy, and I know we could all use a few more dollars in the bank at the end of the week, so maybe that’s a change that you might be interested in making.

There are obviously ones like I just mentioned, improvements to health. There are all types of health changes that can support us, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, physical health and even the health of our bank balance, is always a good thing too.

Or perhaps it’s something different for you, maybe you would love to improve a relationship with somebody, your boss, a colleague, a partner, a child, your mother, your father, it could be just about anyone. So, plenty of changes where you can apply the change process.

And that’s what we’ve been talking about. I am Kim Harris as I said I’m the founder and CEO of the Conscious Thinking Company and I’ve been running this change project for the Yarra Valley community. It’s an initiative of the Community Enterprise FoundationTM and they asked me to come along and support you guys in making some changes in your life.

The best way to do that sometimes is by knowledge, just knowing how.

So, I’m going to be unpacking today the nine processes of change which I’ll go into in more detail but before that let’s play a song we’ve had lots of news and lots of ads and all those sorts of things so let’s play a song I’ve got here Birds of Tokyo “I’d Go with You Anywhere”. Enjoy this one.

Exploring the Nine Processes of Change: A progressive Path

We’re talking about the nine common processes of change, and for those of you who have been listening along, we know that there are six stages of change.

If you have missed the show previously we do have a podcast of all the episodes up on our website, so you can go back and catch up there if it takes your fancy.

So, we’ve got six stages of change and we’ve got ways of progressing from one stage to the next and that’s where these processes come in handy.

Last week we talked about the first three which were consciousness raising, which is a really important one, social liberation, and emotional arousal. Today we’re going to be talking about the next three so we’ve got self-evaluation, commitment, and countering.

We’re going to be talking about those processes today.

Foster Self-Reflection and Flexibility

Change Catalyst: Self-Evaluation

The first one is self-evaluation.

What am I talking about there?

Well, self-evaluation is a thoughtful and emotional reappraisal of a situation. It’s where you step back and take the role of an observer in your life, and you start to assess what is it that you really want who do, who you really want to be, what kind of person do you want to be, what kinds of changes do you want to conquer, and make part of your life and experience from this day forward.

When you experience conflicts between who you are now and who you want to be, we often experience what’s called cognitive dissonance. So, there’s this middle ground, it’s sort of like a no man’s land.

It can be quite a disconcerting place to be.

At times it can be a little bit uncomfortable.

Life will be better when you change what isn’t the best.

Kim Harris

What do we do in in that space? When you realize and truly believe life will be better when you change, that’s often when we get that necessary commitment that starts to drive the change process.

Self-evaluation is important.

We’re also doing a couple of specific evaluations.

Sometimes so we might be evaluating the cost of it, and I don’t mean just the financial cost, but the cost in time, the cost in energy, we can also sometimes give up pleasures, temporary pleasure for something that we know in the long term will provide a lot more gratification rather than just a momentary pleasure.

We also have to evaluate the cost to our stress levels because when you make a change your stress level is likely to go up. At times you’re going to feel the pressure and tension mount up in your body. Sometimes there are costs to our self-image as well. As people knew you to be one particular type of person, and you’re transitioning to become somebody quite different. We do have sometimes a cost to that self-image.

This is a great process and really helpful in a simple way.

All we’re really doing is weighing up the pros and the cons.

We’re going thoughtfully and deeply into “Well, what will be good about this? What might be not so good and am I okay with that?”

A wonderful process to learn. And it reminds me of a technique as well. Within each process there are little techniques or little micro changes that help us with these particular processes. One came to mind for this.  I was thinking about a person that I know who’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, one of the major reasons right now that they’re having a lot of trouble even accepting this diagnosis is because they’re massively inflexible. The self-evaluation process allows you to put some time and space or distance between you and your change and just look at it much more objectively. From there we can gain some flexibility because we are deciphering what is the pros of this what are the cons of this what is good about this what is not so good about this.

Their ability to respond to this change has really diminished to the point where any kind of deviation to what they’re doing is has been quite hard for them to accept. It’s been quite devastating naturally, so staying flexible in your body of course, and also in your mind, when we get these unexpected results, like a doctor’s report, or anything that can happen unexpectedly, can be really important. To maintain that sense of flexibility.

If you can go with the flow, and change the way you see your circumstance, take this role of the observer, and start to more consciously go through a self-evaluation, you can anticipate your needs within that change before it really knocks you down completely.

This means you can recover faster. You can get back on your feet. Start faster. Sometimes that’s all you need, so that you can start to rebuild from there, and make a plan to move forward from there, regardless of where you’re at.

Flexibility, that’s an example of a change a micro change. If we can adopt this idea, I might need to just change inside myself, to be more flexible and to roll with the punches and understand that life’s not always fair. Sometimes we do get these things that come along and knock us for six, these curveballs. Flexibility inside, is an example of a technique that we can use inside of the self-evaluation process.

Something to think about.

I’m going to play a song now.

I’ve got my very favourite friend here Bruce Argyle. He’s popped in to have a chat and listen along to the show.

Taking Action and Commitment

Change Catalyst: Commitment

We’ve been talking further about the role of self-evaluation in the change process, and we’ve been talking about some examples of that.

Not everyone knows that it’s available for them, this self-evaluation process. It’s a bit unknown, to go through the process of creating pros and cons, and weighing things up, can sometimes help you work out, what is the goal, really?

Sometimes we need to change the goal because what we thought the goal was sometimes changes in the evaluation process.

Lots to think about, and definitely a great process to consider to support yourself.

Commit to Change

The Power of Commitment in Transformation

The next one is commitment.

Commitment is a good one. What I really like about the commitment idea is, once you have chosen to make a change, when you’re really at that spot we’re you thinking “Right that’s it! This has got to change. I must change this. I’ve got to change this now. I just can’t go on with things the way they are any longer.”

What you’re doing in that moment is taking responsibility for the process.

That’s what commitment is.

It’s where you say “Okay, I really want this change. I’ve decided I want it and I’m going to take responsibility for that change”.

It’s another way of thinking about self-liberation. It’s like liberating yourself from something that you no longer wish to have be a factor in your life. It’s that self-acknowledgement where you are acknowledging, I can respond, and speak, and act differently. I’m going to do this for myself because I really, really, really, want this change.

Action Speaks Louder: Be cautious about who you share your commitment with and take responsibility for change.

In the beginning, commitment can start very privately.

It’s like an internal intrinsic force.

Where your kind of going, I’m going to take responsibility for this. I’m going to acknowledge myself and that I want this change.

Then, gradually, we can start to go public with our commitment to this change. I do encourage people to go gradually because there are people out there who will (who are not trained in this kind of way of thinking) so you might go out and very well-meaningly say, I’m going to make this change and they’ll be watching you. And they’ll be waiting for you to take some corresponding action. And they can be a little bit judgmental.

If they don’t see you doing things in the way that they think you should be doing it if you really were committed to the change.

The people that we choose to go public with are a really important factor in change work, so make sure you’re around people who, give them this show, give them the podcast so that they can listen along and understand the stages of change, so they can understand you’re in this process.

Let’s apply this to the stages of change. Let’s apply commitment.

Commitment is a process that is commonly seen between the preparation phase, and the action phase.

It’s where you’re thinking, “Okay I’ve done all the self-evaluating. I’ve got all the plans in place. I’m committed to taking these actions.”

It helps you to go from preparation into action having commitment.

It’s an example of how we start to use commitment.

When we’ve got good people in our life, and we’ve shared this change that we’re going to make, they’ll be an increase in supportive factors for you.

They’ll be the ones that encourage you, that champion you. On the days when you might have a little setback, they’ll be the ones that encourage you to get back on the horse. Tell us it’s okay. It’s okay if we miss one workout, it’s just not a good idea to miss ten years of workouts.

It’s when we find we can get it into trouble. So we want to reverse and stop any patterns of in-action. Our supportive partners can be just gold, worth their weight in gold at this stage of change.

Immediate Action: Reinforce Commitment through Initial Steps

So, that’s commitment. Now, another thing I like to think about with regard to commitment, there might be a change that you are prepared to make, so you’re in the stage of preparation, you’re ready, you’ve got a plan in place, you’ve thought about it, you’ve evaluated, you know what you’re going to do, so I would really encourage you, if you’re using this process of commitment, and you’re in the stage where you’re ready to start taking action, I would encourage you to take action immediately. Now.

For example, let’s say you have a goal around being a bit healthier. Then I would encourage you to walk right now to your sink and get a glass of water. I know it sounds a little bit simple, but when we take action on our goal within 24 hours, it’s incredibly powerful.

It’s an action connected to your commitment.

If you decide, and you’re committed this is going to change from this day forward, I’m going to liberate myself from this unwanted behaviour that’s just driving me bananas, the best thing you can do is set yourself a task in the next 24 hours to take action on it. The sooner the better.

It’s a very good way of starting to cement the commitment toward the change in your life. A great technique.

Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it.

Can’t remember off the top of my head

It comes down to the kind of the technique that I’m talking about, is just taking that first little step. There’s a quote which says “Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it” and I think we’ve all seen that little Nike swoosh, “Just do it”, well, I think it’s more apt to actually think “Just start”.

Just start.

We live in a time that can be very unsettling. We can look around and we know we want to do something. We just don’t know what to do. We feel powerless or hopeless to change anything. We don’t want to look back 20 years from now, and say “Oh my god, I just didn’t do anything. I just failed to act. The world was falling apart, but I just didn’t do anything.”

Be that one person who says “I’m not going to leave this up to somebody else. I’m not going to leave this up to someone with more resources, or better ideas, or let someone else take care of that for me. I’m going to be the one who does something”.

I think it’s the only thing that really matters. What you want to do, and start now. Begin it. That is all.

Another song. This one is called “Three Little Words” and it’s by Mal Torme. Enjoy this one.

Behavior Substitution and Personal Growth

Change Catalyst: Countering

Sorry about that, we’re having a few technical glitches this morning.

Don’t worry about a thing Kim! Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. We’ve got songs not playing when we’re pressing play and songs playing when we’re pressing stop.

It’s good thing that I’m flexible, and can cope, and roll with these punches.

All right, we’re talking about some processes within the stages of change this morning.

Countering.

This one’s a really good one. Countering is all about substituting.

This is where we are counter conditioning ourselves.

So it’s to do with our behaviour.

Some of our behaviour is very conditioned.

We will do things without even thinking about it and there are examples of this like when you jump in your car and you drive from A to B and you haven’t even thought about how you did that. It’s because you’ve probably been driving to four decades and the behaviour is conditioned.

There are also behaviours that arise out of the consequences of our mood.

If we feel good, we often do good.

You will know plenty of examples in your own life of that.

Healthy Alternatives: Behaviour Substitution and Meeting Underlying Needs

What we’re doing with countering, is we’re trying to understand the underlying need, and then adopting a healthier option to meet that need.

We want to substitute our behaviours for something else. An example of this, is why I played the song “Three Little Words” because we all think of the three little words as being “I love you”, right? They’re the easy ones. But there are three not easy ones.

And this is an example of how we can counter, and actually arrest something, and do something different in its place, that can lead on to a much better and more profound outcome. The example of this is in my marriage. I used to have this kind of righteousness all of the time with my ex-husband, and I remember this one time, we were in the kitchen and he was talking about something, and normally I would jump in, and just make him wrong. I’m always right, and we’d have an argument. This one particular day, I stopped myself, and I really listened to him. I thought “He’s right”. So the three not easy three words I said were “I was wrong”.

I was wrong.

With that, he actually cried. I think it was a really significant moment in our marriage, where he had been feeling so wrong and I had been berating him obviously for quite some time. That was a real moment where I realized that I was countering my normal behaviour. Instead of going into argument, and going into conflict, and feeling right about it, I stopped myself and countered my behaviour. I said three different words.

They weren’t necessarily easy to say, but I tell you, what I saw was the effect they had, and the relief on his face, I knew I was on to something.

Countering is about substituting behaviour for something else, and as I said when I was talking about commitment, self-liberation and self-acknowledgement is something I can do.

All change is ultimately self-change.

Kim Harris

Only I can choose to respond to someone in a particular way. Only I can choose to speak or act in a different way.

In liberating ourselves from some problematic behaviours, this particular process can be really helpful there’s lots of examples of countering out there.

For example, sitting in a no smoking area if you’re a smoker.

We want to move away from any kind of problematic behaviours that don’t support the change that we’re ideally wanting.

That’s an explanation of countering and a personal example from my life.

I’m going to play another song here it’s Five for Fighting, “Superman”.

Conclusion: Embrace Change and Trigger the Process with Simple Catalysts

I’m not Superman and it’s not easy, and I played that song very specifically because what we’re talking about isn’t easy.

As Bruce and I were just talking about off-air it can seem very overwhelming.

When you take all this information that I’m giving you, I’m giving it to you all in big one lump sum.

You might be sitting there feeling a little bit overwhelmed and that’s okay.

It’s okay to be feeling that way. Obviously in a therapeutic context if you were working with a coach or working with a psychologist or a counsellor, this would be something they take you through one step at a time.

I’m giving it all to you like a huge overview.

Hopefully you can see yourself in this process and hear relatable things in my stories, because a lot of us don’t need to go and see a psychologist or a coach or a counsellor because we’re all capable of changing and all change is ultimately self-change.

Once we know the process, and once we learn it, some of us are really able to just go off and do it and achieve it all by ourselves.

So, you don’t have to learn it all at once!

And that’s the benefit of having this podcast.

We can listen to it and listen to it. If we need to, we can talk about it. There is always a strategy to follow. Learning is a good strategy, combined with talking.

Actually in learning, a lot of people will say “You got to read a hundred books a year” but no, you really don’t. Sometimes it’s better to read one really significant awesome book and read it 20 times.

So feel free to listen to this over and over again.

Step into Change for A Brighter Future Ahead

I’m going to move on and just give a little bit of a summary because we’re coming up to the end of the show.

Today we’ve talked about three of the nine processes that support us as we’re moving through the stages of change.

We’ve talked about self-evaluation which is really helpful process that can take you from perhaps contemplation into preparation or preparation into action.

We’ve also talked about commitment. Our commitment is really helpful again within between preparation and action, and it can also be really good between action and maintenance because sometimes when we’re we’ve been doing the change we’re taking action for a while we can become a little bit complacent, and we can kind of think “Oh well, exercising every day for six months, I can take one day off, that’s fine” And what we want to do is, we want to be quick to arrest any kind of change in behaviour, that’s actually going to take us backwards.

Self-evaluation can help at those sorts of phases of change.

We also talked about countering and countering behaviours, which is substituting things, it’s like looking at if I have a need to relax for example, I could have a cigarette, or I could have a drink, or I could go for a run, or I could you know call a friend and have a really big deep and meaningful, they’re examples of where we’re substituting our behaviour that might meet the same need underneath.

We’ve all had a stressful day where we want to relax and relaxing is good so it’s asking the question “How else might I be able to relax? Other than or rather than using this problematic behaviour?”

That’s where countering fits in.

Nine Keys to Transformation: Unlocking the Stages of Change

So that’s what we’ve talked about today as I said this will be available as a podcast and you can re-listen to it at any time and you can catch up on the other three processes we covered previously.

Next week, I’m going to be talking about the next and final three major processes, so I look forward to having you along.

Just a reminder all these resources are being made available by the Community Enterprise Foundation^TM and their funding the project so that all the resources can be freely available.

You can find out more about the aims of the Togetherness FX project here.

Thank you very much for joining me today I look forward to coming back next week and talking about the final three processes of change that you can use to facilitate your progress along the stages of show.

In Summary

Embarking on a journey of change requires understanding and embracing the processes that facilitate growth and transformation.

By delving into self-evaluation, committing to meaningful change, and countering old habits with healthier alternatives, we empower ourselves to create the life we envision.

Remember, change begins with a single step, and it’s never too late to start.

Be that one person who says, ‘I’m not going to leave this up to somebody else. I’m going to be the one who does something.’

Kim Harris

As we navigate the complexities of life, let us be the catalysts for positive change, both within ourselves and in the world around us.

Join me next time as we continue exploring the final three processes of change.

Until then, stay resilient, stay committed, and never underestimate the power of your own potential. Thank you for tuning in, and remember, together, we can create a brighter future. Have a fabulous week ahead. Take care of yourselves and each other. Bye for now.