Behavior Change IRL: Conclusion

This is the ninth and, merciful god, final installment in my series on Behavior Change in Real Life.

Here are the other links:

Part 1: Behavior Change IRL: Introduction

Part 2: Behavior Change IRL: Start Before You Start

Part 3: Behavior Change IRL: Focus on Both the Journey and the Destination

Part 4: Behavior Change IRL: Get the External Environment Right for You

Part 5: Behavior Change IRL: Reduce Any Drag From Your Inner Environment

Part 6: Behavior Change IRL: When the Needed Change is Existential

Part 7: Behavior Change IRL: Access the Deeper Pools of Motivation

Part 8: Behavior Change IRL: Change the Game

This series is exploring almost twenty-five approaches to behavior change I have encountered and leveraged in fifty years of individual and organizational work.

Behavior Change in Real Life: Conclusion

I covered a lot of ground and yet there is still a lot I did not cover.? Here are a few topics, some quite popular, that I gave no mention to:

• More traditional forms of therapy
• Prayer.? For some, it is a fine line between prayer and affirmation/visualization.? For others those are completely different approaches.
• The dozens of established and emerging approaches to somatic work (e.g., somatic mindful guided imagery, somatic experiencing, integrative body psychotherapy, etc)?
• The use of psychoactive substances & journeying?
• The latest developments in neuroscience and how they are being used to abet behavior change,?

By not covering them, I am not implying they are not effective.? I have just not leveraged them and cannot report on their efficacy.? But don’t let that stop you from digging in…remember, leverage edge wherever you can get it from.

How does on summarize a 20,000 word undertaking like this?? Should one even try?

Probably not. But I was always impressed with how Michael Pollan boiled down a Library of Congress’ amount of completely contradictory dietary recommendations and prescriptions into eight words.??

?“Eat Real Food. Not Too Much.?Mostly plants.”?

?That’s an impressive distillation.

For better or worse, here’s my swing at a Michael Pollan-esque summary of this series:

• Before setting an objective and charging off, consider whether some of the approaches in the Change the Game section (Process Work, Unshaming, Infinite Games, Find Your Purpose) might help you make sure you’re putting your ladder against the right wall.
• Try to believe there might be something beautiful about…and a real power in…the place you are starting from. Even if some part of you is dying to move away from where you are, see if you can say “yes” to your starting place and see the beauty in it, at least just enough so you are not starting out “against yourself.”
• Once you decide on a change, don’t be na?ve.? Most New Year’s resolutions and many behavior change journeys end up in the ditch.? The thing you are trying to change or the goal you are trying to reach will likely be significantly harder to achieve and maintain than you think.??
• If I don't say so myself, my explication of the five ways the environment can support behavior change is the most important contribution of this series.? Most people and most coaches frankly are leaving a lot of environmental leverage on the sidelines.?
• If I had to put all my chips on just one of the twenty-five or so approaches I covered in this series, it would be to leverage the power of a group.? Find people trying to make changes…it does not even have to be the same changes as you…just trying to improve in some way.? Make sure you are meeting regularly, monthly at a minimum, weekly is better.? No other approach single-handedly leverages so many of the environmental change levers that being in a group does and in such overt and nuanced ways.
• The more you get the environment right the less you have to rely on motivation, but you are still going to need it.? Tap into the deep pools of motivation and psychic energy you can: 1) Purpose/Love:? align your objective to a purpose that you are moved by, 2) Cognitive Dissonance:? this was referenced multiple times throughout this series.? The simplest way to get it working for you is create affirmations, visualizations, and a new identity around what/who you want to be such that cognitive dissonance arises inside you and pulls you back on track when you behave inconsistently with this new identity 3) Anger:? don’t be afraid of it…“chips on shoulders put chips in pockets.”
• Skinner’s rats and pigeons didn’t have to worry about inveterate doubts, self-criticism, and inner characters with completely different agendas for your future.? You do.? You, as Walt Whitman said, “contain multitudes .”? Have a plan, using tested techniques, for how you will herd those multitudes and reduce the drag from your inner environment.
• Leverage any edge you can get your hands on.? You’ll likely need it.

Not quite at Michael Pollen’s level of parsimony, but a start.

If you have had the intestinal fortitude to get through this series and gleaned something useful, I am delighted.

But I wrote this treatise for me.? The ideas started working me over at the end of 2022, when I realized I did not have a clear POV on Behavior Change.? Writing is how I get clear.

I don’t choose what to write. ?It chooses me. ?I’ve just learned to stop arguing with the Muse and get out of the way.

As I said, if you did get something out of this series, great.? But I will close with my favorite from Japanese Death Poems . This one is by Tetto Giko, a Zen Master, who died fifteenth day, fifth month, 1369

The truth is never taken

From another.

One carries it always,

By oneself.

Katsu!

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Dennis Adsit, Ph.D. is the President of Adsum Insights and designer of The First 100 Days and Beyond , a consulting service for leaders in transition who need to get off to the best possible start in their new jobs.