Can people really change?

Some of us dislike change. To be honest, I have not been an active enthusiast of change myself during my corporate career. However, on deeper examination a pattern may reveal itself. We tend to dislike change when it is imposed upon us. On the other hand, we may have a fondness for change when we initiate it, when we are firmly gripping the ‘steering wheel’ and we feel in control. Without change life can be too predictable, mundane and boring. After all, humans have as much need for uncertainty. This is one of the reasons we prefer to watch live telecasts and avoid reading spoilers in a book or a movie review.

When we look at self-initiated change, we have time to prepare. We appraise and evaluate what the future may hold for us (as a result of change). Most importantly, we seek to make sense of the future from the lens of the past. For example, in my banking career it was customary to predict repayment capability of clients by examining their past track record and behaviour. Indeed, the past holds key data, evidences and clues for dealing with the present and planning for the future. Our core sense of identity, self-esteem and self-efficacy are largely determined by our past experiences and choices.

In this article however, I want to explore a divergent reality.

What if, the change that we wish to initiate is so transformative that our past is inadequate to provide answers?

Examples of such change could be moving from a role of a corporate professional to an entrepreneur (in my case), mid-career shifts, getting married or having a child (for some), divorce or other such life events.

When such change is self-initiated, we experience some drive or motivation to move forward and break through the obstacles. However, when the change is imposed upon us, the journey to adapt is arguably more difficult. This change may possess some of the following characteristics:

• The past holds some answers but they are insufficient and inadequate to effectively address the present-day struggles.
• Our struggle seems ‘existential’, being more fundamental in nature when compared to a fragment or a component that we can just fix. 
• We experience anxiety, confusion and doubt about our identity and consequent ability to navigate through this. 
• The result metrics may have suddenly changed. What we were evaluated on before no longer seems to hold true as new variables have emerged.
• We may feel the need to shed our old skin for new in this pursuit.
• We may need to redefine our role but we don’t know exactly how?

This throws up an interesting question - Can we change who we are fundamentally?

Sometime back, a friend sent me a great article about identity and the key message of the article was summarised in one sentence:

“Change that does not challenge our identity is never transformative, it simply pushes us into finding another way of remaining who we are”.

Although this article fascinated and inspired me, it also perplexed me. I wrote to my friend expressing some doubts and asked the following questions. 

• How can one change identity?
• How can you become someone else? How can you be anything other than who you are?
• In this pursuit of identity change, how far can we go?
• How do we know which parts of us to preserve and which to discard?

My contention was that our core identity (especially as we approach middle-adulthood) is so well-defined in our minds having been largely created throughout our childhood, formative years and early adulthood. This identity has strong components of values, natural preferences, strengths, predispositions etc. Phrases like ‘be your authentic self’ and quips like ‘be yourself, everyone else is already taken’ strongly resonated with me. I was a strong advocate of forging a distinctive path and not trying to become someone else in the process. So, the article confused me for a long time until:

I was myself exposed to Transformative change.

I understand now what I could not comprehend then.

• That our identity is more comprehensive than just our personality, values, strengths and capabilities.
• It is a reservoir of deeply ingrained belief systems, scripts and stories that are embedded in our mental models.
• These scripts are as empowering as they are crippling. We embrace them whole heartedly when it serves us and we struggle when we do not get what we want.

The answer lies in altering this life script to fit our reality or goal.

The transformative process calls for a reconfiguration of our current selves which may be held back or restrained by such script.

Drawing a good analogy would be Lego pieces that we may have played as children: we can build, dismantle and rebuild towards multiple outcomes using the same blocks.

This reconfiguration involves including those parts that already existed within us – only we did not know that they existed, those parts of us that we had relegated to the back-stage, which we did not interact with actively before. It is almost like they were asleep all along and have now been awakened. In this change voyage, these parts slowly start making an appearance on stage and we end up both surprising and rediscovering ourselves in the process. In doing so, our true essence is not disturbed, only the arrangement changes. We can continue to invest in new skills and competencies to complement and fit in with this reconfigured self.

One of my own limiting scripts had been that I was not entrepreneur material as I did not come from a family that had a business background or mindset. Over time, I invested time and effort with a coach, numerous mentors and role models to re-examine and rework my script entirely. The process took time but yielded results as the changes became apparent gradually. The interesting thing post this shift is that, I can now clearly see those parts of me – the same strengths, personality and values that are helping and contributing successfully to my entrepreneurial journey.

I still look to the past for some answers but feel liberated from its stranglehold on me.