Reshape Your World

Key Takeaways

• Environmental Control: Restructure your environment to increase the probability of adopting new behaviours and avoiding old ones.
• Rewards: Motivate yourself using rewards rather than punishment. Stimulate an approach mentality by focusing on pleasurable outcomes.
• Helping Relationships: Seek support from caring and understanding individuals who can provide encouragement and praise for your progress.

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The Urgency for Positive Change: My Passion for Change

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the show. My name is Kim Harris. This is Stories of Change.

You know what? It’s very hard to sit here and listen to the news and not feel all the distressing things that are happening in the world.

And it really makes me even more passionate about Stories of Change and what it takes to change because the world needs us. The world needs us very badly to make some improvements.

So, let’s talk about change this morning.

As you will all know if you’ve been following the show, I am doing a project which is called Togetherness FX.

It’s a project that is being funded by the Community Enterprise Foundation^TM. It’s an initiative to bring some information to you about what it takes to change because we have sometimes unexpected change thrust upon us and sometimes we don’t know really what to do with it.

Sometimes we want to change purposefully and intentionally, and we don’t know how to go about that either.

The world needs us very badly to make some improvements.

Kim Harris

So, I’m hoping to bring you some information about that. It is a fair bit of information, so I really encourage you to follow along on my website kimmharris.com and listen, re-listen to any episodes that you’ve missed out on.

A bit of a recap. We’ve been talking about the six stages of change, and within each stage as you move from one stage into the next stage there are some simple little processes that you can apply to move you from one stage to the next and make the change process much much easier for yourself.

Reshape Your World with the Key Processes for Effective Change

So, we’ve been talking about those nine processes in a little bit more detail.

A couple of weeks ago we talked about the first three which was consciousness raising, social liberation and using your emotions. Then last week we talked about self-evaluation, your commitment and countering behaviours.

Today we’re going to talk about environmental controls, rewards and my most favourite one of all which relates to Togetherness FX, which is helping relationships.

So, I hope you’ll join me, but I’m going to play a song to inspire us which is by The Animals “I’m Going to Change the World”. Enjoy this one.

An interesting story behind that song. Love it, love it, love it. Lyrics are very powerful to me. I love words.

A big part of my life is a study of language because you can tell a lot by the way people put their words together, and we are talking about change today and I’m going to be using my words to try to explain a few concepts to you.

We’re going to be talking about these processes these little step-by-step things you can do. The good thing to remember in all of this, I’m giving you a lot of information, but really we just want to choose, change doesn’t have to be that dramatic.

It can be one simple thing.

You can choose any one of these things depending on where you’re at in life and what kind of change you might like to make.

Some of these are more helpful at times than others.

So, what are the nine processes? Well, we’ve been talking about them today.

Environmental Control: Restructuring Your Environment

Reshape Your World with this Action-oriented Step

Now, I’m going to talk about a process called environmental control.

So, when you’re going through a change process, and when you want to go from one stage of change into another stage, environmental controls are helpful.

They’re an action orientated step so it’s kind of around the fourth stage of change, which is the action phase.

This is a very action orientated process.

Environmental controls are really when we decide we’re going to make a change now, we’ve planned it out and we’re going to restructure our environment to increase the probability that we will take the new behaviour that we want to action.

We make it as easy as we possibly can to avoid an old behaviour and replace it with a new behaviour.

Change doesn’t have to be dramatic. It can be one simple thing.

Kim Harris

There’s all sorts of things you can do to restructure your environment.

I’ve heard some good examples over the years and worked with different clients on this.

One person used to put their junk food right down in the back shed at the back of the property so that if they wanted it they’d have to go out in the middle of the night through the rain, through the wet, through the cold to go into the shed to get the junk food.  They also put it up on a high shelf so they would need a ladder to reach it.

So that’s an example of an environmental control.

It’s sort of like putting a few more obstacles between them and the treat. They were attempting to release some weight which they successfully did do.

So, that’s one example where you can make things just more difficult for yourself.

Add obstacles.

We can also make things easier.

A good example of this came up in my life recently because I’m wanting to do a little bit more exercise than I have been, and I was thinking “Okay, how can I slot exercise in?”, so I don’t have to stop what I’m doing, and get distracted or waylaid, and go off and do it. I’ve got to include it in an organic way, within my life.

I noticed, with my kids, when I drop them off to school there’s a gym on the way to my kids’ school, and I was thinking to myself it’s a bit hard for me to do it in the morning after I’ve dropped them off, but I was thinking I could leave an hour earlier and drop in at the gym on the way.

It’s literally on the same road.

That’s an example of trying to use the structure of the environment around me, the services and the resources that are around me, and try to kind of slot it in the of rhythm of my life.

I’ve got much more chance of pulling in there while I’m out.

If I set a plan to include it while I’m out, I don’t have to stop my work in the middle of the day and go and exercise, it’s on the way just leaving a little bit earlier.

A couple of examples there. I think also as a mother of eight I’m not sure if you can fully appreciate how much washing we do in my household, but I’ve got a couple of washing machines and we’ve got loads of washing.

A simple example is having a dirty clothes basket in all my kid’s room. The structure is there, the environment is set up for them, the system is set up for them. A basket to put their dirty clothes in, they bring it to the to the laundry and if it doesn’t get bought to the laundry it doesn’t get done.

These are all simple examples of environmental controls, they’re very action orientated, some ideas there for you.

That is the seventh of nine processes. I’m going to play another song now this one’s by The Rockmelons it’s called “Stronger Together” because I really believe that we are much better off when we are doing things together. Enjoy this one by The Rockmelons.

Rewards: Motivating Positive Action

Reshape Your World with a Carrot or a Stick. Your choice.

I’ve got a question for you. What motivates you more?

The carrot or the stick?

Everybody is slightly different.

For some people, what really motivates them is this idea of some kind of future reward.

For some people they typically want to avoid some kind of unpleasantness.

We have, what in psychology they refer to, having an approach or an avoidance kind of mentality.

When we are approaching something, it might be a good result.

If we’re avoiding something, it might be an unpleasant result.

This is important because this comes into the eighth process of change which is called rewards.

Rewards are related to punishment. With rewards and punishment being the opposite sides of the same coin. They provide motivation for action.

As I have learned as a parent, and I’m sure many of you have too, that punishment is often less effective than a reward system.

Unfortunately, with punishment, it’s not about teaching, and it sometimes will temporarily suppress a behaviour, but it doesn’t lead to a long-lasting permanent change.

Rewards have been proven with science, to be the most effective thing when it comes to helping, especially in the action maintenance stages of the process of change.

Rewards often lead to long-lasting change.

Would you like some examples of how you can set up some rewards? Of course you would!

The best changes are the simple ones.

Kim Harris

Some things are simple like let’s say you quit smoking, and you’ve been paying for the cigarettes, so now you could put that money aside and perhaps buy yourself a present, or a trip, or a vacation, or some kind of purchase, or something that you really wanted.

Another simple reward is just getting your helping partners whoever they may be, and I’m going to talk about that more after, but praise. We can elicit praise from our helping partners, and we need to learn to ask them to praise us, and encourage us, and give us that kind of moral support.

Another fun way to include a reward system is something that I do with my accountability partner. We put we put bets on each other. We bet each other that we can or can’t do things and create some sort of incentive or consequence for our actions. It’s very satisfying to win a bet, especially when someone is betting against you!

Some of consequences we devise have been quite funny. One of the consequences was you’d have to eat dog food if you didn’t stick with something. One that I gave my friend was if she didn’t do something by the end of the day she’d have to do a Facebook live, naked. She got herself right into gear and got on with it!

We can go about it playfully and have a bit of fun. And this can be a way to inject fun into your change process.

What the most important thing is that a reward reinforces the positive behaviour, and your progress along the positive path. It’s not necessarily that you achieve any kind of result it’s rewarding yourself for the positive progress you’re making. You’re rewarding yourself for the action that you’re taking. It’s not so much about the end goal necessarily it’s more about taking those positive behavioural steps to change anything that you would like to change.

This is a tricky one. Some people have strange feelings about rewarding themselves. So, this is where a helping partner can be helpful, because sometimes we need a little bit more perspective on how we are going and what our progress truly is.

Some people, depending on how you’ve been raised, it’s tricky to feel like you’re deserving of a reward. We do have these universal fears that are often underneath our behaviours and not obvious.

There are three main fears that drive a lot of behaviours. Some people have an unconscious fear of not being enough, or not being worthy, or not being loved. If you’ve got a pattern of one of those fears threaded through your life, the thought of then rewarding yourself if you’re feeling quite unworthy deep down, can be challenging.

It’s good to check in with your feelings about rewards and then if you do feel like there’s some resistance to being rewarded, and you think “Oh I don’t really deserve a reward”, or it feels weird to reward yourself, that might be the point where you talk to your helping partner. Get some outside perspective on how you are really going.

This is one of those things that I have outsourced to my children because they love rewarding me. Interestingly, I’m very hard on myself and I have this little jar on my desk and every task that I complete it’s put in the jar and at the end of the week my daughter will count how many how many tasks I’ve completed and depending on how I’ve gone she will happily take on the task of rewarding me.

She’s good at it!

So, think about that. Think about if there is someone that you can outsource your rewards to and find some way of communicating your goals for the week, or your goals for the day, and then check in with them and talk about your progress.  Let them be the ones to determine what it is you deserve, or what you don’t deserve. Like I said, I’ve found my daughter has been absolutely wonderful in doing this. It comes to Friday night, and she’ll go “Go and have a bath, light your candles, sing your songs, play your music, listen to your favourites”, she’s been a good helping partner in this regard for me.

Focus one small chunk at a time.

Kim Harris

Some ideas there on including some rewards in your life and it kind of goes back to your work ethic too. I touched on it there, tasks and things I’m trying to complete each week. When we’re doing a good job, there’s lots of things that take care of themselves. Like when we when we deliver a good product, or a good service, and when people do this, successful people, often have this one thing in common, which is they really have a great work ethic.

They show up, they do the work, and they keep going.

I think this is true of lots of people in our community. I think we’ve got a lot of people that have a strong work ethic. When you’ve done your best work, things often will fall into place. When you think about it, the people who are really the most successful at anything, are the ones who don’t quit the longest. They just keep going, they keep doing a good job, they keep trying to do their best. It is hard sometimes to reward that kind of work ethic if you’re the worker, right? You think “Well, of course, that’s what we do. We get the job done. This is what we need to do. We all need money. We need to get on with things.”

Think about if you find it hard to reward yourself and give over the control of that to somebody else. Let them observe you, and give you feedback when you’ve done a good job.

Let someone help you to point out the good progress you’re making for you if you have a bit of trouble with that and with that.

I’m going to play another song that this is by the Black Sorrows it’s called “Hold on to Me”.

The songs I’m playing today are all about togetherness and in this case “Hold on to Me” is a song I’m playing for encouragement to ask someone else to help you.

Helping Relationships: Fostering Support Systems

Reshape Your World with Helping Relationships

We’re talking about what it takes to change.

How do you break that down as a process, so it makes it easier for you.

A nice few simple steps to start to engage in the change process.

We’ve talked about a couple already, but this is my absolute favourite.

This is the ninth and final process.

You can use it to transition from one stage to another stage and it’s called helping relationships.

I know I’ve alluded to it quite often.

I’ve left my favourite to last. Lucky last.

Helping relationships, what are they?

When we are changing, a lot of the time we’re self-changing, we don’t need a lot of help.

We don’t necessarily need to go and see a counsellor or a psychologist or a psychiatrist it’s not that kind of that level of help that we need.

So sometimes we’re just having a go, on our own, without professional help.

Now this doesn’t mean that we refuse care! Or support, or assistance.

It means, sometimes we don’t feel like we need help.

In these cases, it can be helpful to simply get help from “significant others”. Someone who is significant, instrumental to your happiness, and important in your life.

This could be anyone who is caring, or understanding, or accepting, in your life.

It could be a friend, a family member, a member of your clergy, or a minister at church. Anyone in particular who has got that kind of caring, understanding, accepting, kind, vibe.

This type of person is helpful during the change process.

And this is what I would really love to encourage everyone in the community to think about.

We can do so much good in the world.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard about the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is this idea of when a butterfly flaps its wings on the east coast of Australia you know it can end up in as a tsunami across the ocean on the other side of the world. These movements have ripple effects.

It’s the same with the way we feel. Scientists have determined that every person on the planet affects about 80,000 people by their mood.

If you’re in a good mood and you simply smile at someone, that can have a ripple effect across to 80,000 people they’ve calculated, which amazing.

Likewise, if you’re in a bad mood that will ripple out.

You can see it puts us in this position where we need to think about what mood we are projecting into the environment around us.

Am I acting courageously? Lovingly? Willingly? Acceptingly? Am I trying to be a good person? Because it has a ripple effect.

It’s a powerful force across the world when we do take the time to help each other, and when we help ourselves to get into a good frame of mind, we’re potentially impacting 80,000 other people in a very positive way.

I think it’s worth changing our mood!

Learning how to transition through problematic emotions because we do feel angry from time to time, we will feel sad from time to time, and just like the weather, emotions are changeable.

Learning how to do all these things I’m talking about are extremely valuable.

We can change anything 12 weeks at a time.

Kim Harris

Helping relationships are a primary mechanism for support during the change process.

Courage comes in here. When we need to learn how to communicate with people effectively. Where we request support or ask for support. Where we talk about our preferences and needs. With the last tip around rewards, we might need to talk to someone and say, “what is a reward for me is, you giving me a pat on the back”, or meeting me down the pub after work for a cold beer (I’ve got a few fellas who love gardening and reward themselves with a nice cold beer at the end of their work.

We have preferences in what is considered a reward for us and sometimes we need to negotiate our needs for that reward.

We need to fit in with other people, and we’ve got to be respectful of other people, and what they’ve got going on in their world as well. There’s this wonderful exchange then when we’re open and vulnerable and courageous enough, to say “Hey, I’m working on this thing, and I’d really appreciate your support”. And when that person says “Yeah, I’ll help you with that”, it’s then educating them along the way about your experience of that.

Sometimes it will be not so good. Sometimes you’ll feel a lot of resistance, and you’ll feel like it’s hard, and talking to this helping partner all through the process, understanding that we can’t control other people, so we can’t demand them, to reward or praise us.

That’s why I started out by talking about who are the people in your life that really care and that are very understanding and very accepting and how can you enlist those special people as a helping partner in your change process.

Very supportive.

What Togetherness FX is all about.

The effects of doing life together.

When we do things together, when we are willing to help each other change, it’s much easier for people to continue to implement the processes and take the action when they are supported through the process.

That is the ninth and final process.

Reshape Your World by Embracing Change Together

Lots for you to think about I know.

All these resources will be freely available on the website so you can really listen to them and think about if you’re ready to start taking some action.

On the subject of getting someone to support you, another interesting example, I was talking to one of my clients the other day was she’s gone back to study as an adult learner. She was saying she kind of looks at the textbook and it’s just like this blob of words and mess. She says it might as well be in Japanese for all her level of understanding. There are terms she doesn’t quite understand.

It’s a good example for a helping partner, with her I suggested a tutor. Because tutors have the knowledge, and they can fill in some of those knowledge gaps very quickly. And help her to be on her way with her studies. Another simple example of a helping partner. Thought I’d put that out there.

With the theme of today and this idea of togetherness and helping partners the world the world is full of mentors. There’s a lot of them who have already put down their advice in books, and resources, and online programs, and sometimes all we must do is reach out and take advantage of it most of the time.

We’re sometimes too busy thinking it’s way too complicated, but the right answer can oftentimes be simple.

Like, let’s just get a tutor.

Let’s find someone who knows about this subject matter and learn from them. They can pick out and pinpoint the knowledge gaps for you.

Something very simple. Worth repeating the simplicity of it. With that note and with the idea of togetherness and doing it together and reaching out for support, I’ve got another song here by Bob Marley which is “One Love People Get Ready” enjoy this one.

We’ve been talking further about the nine common processes for change.

These are all building blocks.

Obviously we’re not using all nine of these processes.

We might pick one when we need it, when we’re hoping to move from one stage of change to the next.

We start with one and then we use that as a kind of a guiding light and then we build on another one, and another one, the best changes are the simple ones.

The not dramatic ones. The uncomplicated ones. Like drinking an extra glass of water, a day. Breathing more every day.

I know it sounds too simplistic, but interestingly when we release weight we release weight through aspirating, as we breathe out we can lose weight. I bet you didn’t know that!

So, it’s way underrated, breathing.

Breath and simple breath work exercises, put a little reminder in your phone every hour to breathe. Breathe deeply. Do different kind of metrics of breathing, breathe in for five seconds, hold your breath for five seconds, and let the breath out for five seconds and you’re literally releasing your body of weight.

Simple is the key.

Knowing how to do some of these things can be incredibly empowering for people and this is why I’m talking about this.

Thankfully the Community Enterprise FoundationTM has enabled me to do this program for you.

I am Kim Harris the founder and CEO of the Conscious Thinking Company and change is my bag baby. I love change. I love change work. Individual change, and organizational change is a real focus of my life’s work.

So, I love this topic.

Yes! I appreciate it can be overwhelming when you think “Oh my god, she’s got six stages, and nine processes – what the heck!”

Concentrate on one little habit, whatever one works for you. Start there. Make that your habit and persist with it. Eventually that one is integrated, and then you upgrade, funnily, you upgrade the level of problems.

And then you use the same process again in a different context, and you simply traverse, onwards and upwards!

You’ll be a change expert in no time!

If you’ve missed out on any of the other nine processes, you can recap those on the website.

Reshaping Your World: In Summary

Let’s do a recap of what we talked about today.

We talked about the final three of nine processes used for change.

The first one we talked about was environmental control. A very action orientated step you can take where you restructure your environment to increase the probability of either avoiding something that you want to stop doing or increase the chances of you doing something better, by rejigging your environment. That’s environmental controls.

We also have rewards. We talked about this idea of what motivates you more, the carrot or the stick? Knowing yourself, and knowing how you’re wired, you use that to your advantage, so you can either put in place something that you want to avoid like the bets or consequences I had with my friend, you might have to eat dog food, or do something live on Facebook naked. Make it fun and light-hearted and that might be something you could use to avoid a problem behaviour.

It could be the carrot for you. You might like to have a reward. You might like at the end of a significant change a reward; you might deserve a holiday or something like that.

Work towards including rewards whichever way suits you. The idea is punishment is the less effective of both. We want to stimulate where possible, an approach mentality. That is where we’re working towards the future and a desired goal. We like pleasurable things, and we want to avoid painful things.

Work with your strength. If you if you are more motivated by the stick then maybe a painful bet with a friend could be a fun way to motivate you!

The lucky last one is helping relationships.

We talked about the role of those very specific types of caring people in your life. Those understanding types, the accepting types of people who are encouraging and supportive. Who will give you praise for the progress you’re making, no matter how small. Who will help you acknowledge all those little things because a lot of little things compound over time to make a very big change and that’s really the best way to tackle anything.

One small chunk at a time.

We change anything 12 weeks at a time, so give yourself time, hook up with someone that’s encouraging and supportive and think outside to friends, family members, clergy, ministry. Also, there are professionals as well. Who can help you?

There’s a summary of what we’ve talked about today and as I said you can listen, re-listen to any episodes and recap anything that you’ve missed on our previous sessions.

In Conclusion

n a world filled with distressing news, the need for positive change becomes more evident than ever. Through the Stories of Change podcast and the Togetherness FX movement, we explore the intricacies of transformation and resilience in the face of adversity.

As we’ve discussed in this episode, change doesn’t have to be daunting. It can start with simple adjustments in our environment, motivations, and support systems. By restructuring our surroundings, rewarding ourselves for progress, and fostering helping relationships, we can navigate the journey of change more effectively.

Remember, the most impactful changes often stem from consistent, small efforts over time. As you embark on your own transformational journey, whether it’s improving relationships, adopting healthier habits, or pursuing personal growth, know that you’re not alone. Reach out for support, celebrate your victories, and embrace the power of togetherness in effecting positive change.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Stories of Change. Be sure to explore more episodes on our website and stay tuned for further insights and inspiration. Together, we can create a world where resilience and empathy flourish.

Talk to you next week.

Bye for now.