Do we need to change how we think about change?

Why we fear change and how we can train ourselves to embrace it by finding our self-belief.

Picture the scene. You’ve come home from work. You partner meets you at the door. They put a cup of tea in your hand and they say these words:

“We need to talk. Something’s got to change.”

What thoughts would be swirling around in your head at this point?

I tell you what I’d be thinking. I’d be thinking, “Holy shitballs, what have I done?” Closely followed “He’s going to leave me.”

This is not because our relationship is fragile. This is because of 2 incontrovertible truths:

1) We fear the worst.

2) And we usually assume it’s something we’ve done.?

In other words, we catastrophise, and we make it about us. For we do so love to get stuck on the “me” channel don’t we?

Now I’m not saying this to be judgey. I’m saying this because, no matter what we are trying to achieve, it’s much easier to do so if we understand the human mind and work WITH it, as opposed to trying to wrestle with it. And I’m particularly interested to understand what is going on in our heads when we are confronted with change. The last few years have been tumultuous and difficult for many. And the more and more I speak to organisations, I’m seeing leaders who see a golden opportunity to harness lessons learned so they pivot out of COVID better and stronger. In other words, change is the leading currency of 2022.?

It’s not difficult to see the advantages of change, also referred to as continuous improvement - the clue is in the title. That is to say, change brings the opportunity to make things better.?

But that’s easier said than done.?

We can see it in the above example. If my partner, or anyone else for that matter tells me they want a change, my instinctive response is to feel fear.?

Why?

WHY WE FEAR CHANGE

Well to start with it is human nature. We fear the worst because that’s what keeps us alive. Our primitive brains work on a better-safe-than-sorry principle. And change brings uncertainty which brings the possibility of a threat that we have not yet learned to defeat, which brings the possibility of death…so that bit is kind of hard-wired. The second reason, is a bit more complex and it is this one that will form the basis of this article.?

Why do we take it so personally?

I think it’s because?we entertain a fixed idea of what we need to be in order to be “good enough”.?

Allow me to explain.?

When I was 12 I decided I was going to be a fighter pilot. Top Gun was the coolest film I had ever seen and I wanted to be Tom Cruise. For the next 10 years I spent every waking moment working towards that goal. I joined the Air cadets AND the Combined Cadet Force. I joined the local gliding school. Whilst everyone else was experimenting with cigarettes and K Cider, I spent my lunchbreaks reading current affairs so that I could ace my RAF interview. I even applied to Cambridge University because an RAF officer had casually remarked, “I think the RAF would approve if you went to Cambridge.” I was so unbelievably focused on achieving this goal. To be Tom Cruise. I joined the RAF, went through the flying training system, flying Tutor aircraft, then Tucanos and then onto the Hawk. And somehow, I got through.

And then it was time to do my final test. This would seal my fate as a fighter pilot. I went up for my pre-ride….. and I choked. My landings were too hard. So I had another sortie. This time my aerobatics were rubbish. So I had another sortie. This time my emergency handling was poor. I remember my instructor shaking his head “I know you can do this. I’ve seen you do everything to a good standard previously.” He’d just taken control from me on landing as I was about to veer off the runway. I’d gone from being able to lead a four-ship of Hawks at low level around Wales, to not being able to taxi in a straight line. (Back then there would have been a joke made about women drivers but I suspect that wouldn’t be acceptable now.).?

Bit by bit I was falling apart. We used to call it the “slippery slope”. And I was accelerating down this slope at 7 miles a minute. Literally. Finally my instructor said “we can’t give you any more flying hours. You’re going to have to just go for it.” (You know what it’s like with budgets. Think of flying training as a race. You are racing to achieve the required standard before the money runs out.) And so I went up for my final test. And I knew within the first 5 minutes that I had failed and that my fast jet career was over. I was not going to be Tom Cruise.?

What has this got to do with a fear of change you may ask.?

THE FEAR OF NOT BEING GOOD ENOUGH

Well you may recall that I said that I believe the root cause for our fear of change is this:?having a fixed idea of what we need to be in order to be good enough.?“If I do X I’ll be worthy and lovable.”

All my adolescent life and well into my twenties I staked my identity on being a fighter pilot. It’s what I was known for. And I assumed that this is what made me popular and successful.

In fact I remember, when I was “chopped” the thing I was most afraid of was telling my friends. After I left Cambridge, most of my friends went into the city and became bankers and lawyers. I used to go for nights out and in London with them where they presented me as if I were an exotic zoo animal. “This is our friend, Furn. She's a fighter pilot.”?I would then have the undivided attention of everyone in the room, which if I’m honest, I rather enjoyed. So I was really worried about what they were going to say when I had to tell them. “I'm not a fighter pilot anymore. Will you still be seen with me?”

It turns out they did still want to be seen with me. They loved me anyway. AND it turns out that flying helicopters is bloody awesome. So my fears were unfounded.?

Which illustrates my original point about why we fear change (and why I was so afraid of a change in status.) It’s because 1) we assume the worst, (far worse than we need to in fact)

But the other reason is because 2) we make it personal (what does this say about me?)

OUR FEAR FEEDS POOR SELF BELIEF

In other words, if someone is asking us to change we are afraid it is because we are not good enough in our current form. And if we drill down a bit deeper still this suggests that our fear of change stems from our fear that we are not enough. Or more simply, we suffer from a lack of self-belief.

I have sometimes wondered if this is, somewhat perversely, part of the reason why I choked during flying training; deep down I didn't believe I was good enough to be Tom Cruise. And when I surprised myself by nearly reaching that impossible standard, I took myself down.?

Or maybe I just ran out of talent.

Either way I think we all experience self-doubt in some way. And I believe that this is underlying problem that causes us to fear change. So if we want to embrace change then we are going to need to find some self belief from somewhere.?

Great. How?

SELF BELIEF - THE PITFALLS OF “I AM ENOUGH”

Common wisdom is to chant affirmations every day. Repeating “I am enough” to yourself daily. Or you could write it in your favourite lippy on the bathroom mirror. But I have 3 issues with this.?

Firstly, it’s REALLY hard to change ingrained thinking patterns (ie beliefs).?

They’ve been there a LONG time and the brain craves familiarity over happiness, hence the phrase “better the devil you know.” So the brain will resist us if we try to change these deeply etched neural pathways. That’s not to say it’s’ impossible. But, we are working AGAINST the brain here so we are making it more difficult than we need to.

Secondly, I wonder if it ignores what it is to be human.?

Ultimately we are wired for survival, not happiness. It is human nature to keep striving (so we can conquer the next threat and ensure the survival of our species.) In other words we are programmed to be dissatisfied with our current status so that we keep improving and perpetuate the human race. Which means we are kind of hard wired to believe “I am not enough.” So once again we are in danger of working AGAINST our brain which is going to make things a lot harder.?

Thirdly if we do reach this nirvana state of believing we are enough, well there’s nothing really left to do is there??

I recently spoke with a CEO who said, “I promote people to the level they are slightly uncomfortable. I believe that’s where they excel. If they get to the stage they think they know everything I promote them again or get rid of them.” In other words when we stop learning, we stop growing. We become…. I don’t know. Meh. Hollow. Bored. Stuck. So I’m not altogether convinced that this “I am not enough” belief is the menace that we make it out to be. It’s what makes us human. It keeps us growing. And keeps us humble.

Side note: I did wonder if we could get round this by changing the metric by which we measure this belief. I.e. “How do I measure up against my chosen values, eg integrity” And whilst I’m a big fan of using our values as our North Star, unless you are a robot or Jesus Christ, you’re still going to have off days where you temporarily abandon your values, particularly if you are emotionally depleted, sick or tired. This is why good people do bad things. Which means there are still going to be days when you are not enough, and what’s more, it’s probably a good sign that you know this so that you can take action to get back on track and be the wonderful human that you are capable of being.

So rather than chasing this belief of “I am enough”, I wonder if there might be another way.

Fortunately there is.??

A CASE FOR CHANGING WHAT SELF BELIEF LOOKS LIKE…

First of all I’d like to make a case for changing the belief altogether. For all the reasons above I’m not convinced the “I am enough” campaign is particularly achievable nor helpful. So, what then? Well, as I mentioned before, I believe that when you drill down to the root cause it all stems from a lack of self-belief. And I think if we are going to embrace change we first need to have self-belief. But self belief doesn't have to look like “I am enough”. What about, “I believe in myself.” Or “I’ll be ok.”?

For example I remember when I was going through some of the hardest years of my life. It involved years of drawn out legal proceedings with no end in sight. There was a lot of uncertainty and a lot of change that I felt was being “done to me”. (This is another reason why we resist change - we feel powerless - read my previous blog?here ). Despite the huge turmoil in my life however, and although I was scared, I remember a simple phrase repeated itself in my head. “Whatever happens, I’ll be ok.” I couldn’t have told you why at the time, but for some reason I just?believed?that I was capable of dealing with whatever the future threw at me. And that meant I was able to deal with rapidly changing goalposts with an element of sangfroid. My point is, if we can believe in ourselves and our ability to get through, no matter what, that goes a long way to being able to embrace change. So I’d like to make a case for building a belief something like this: “Whatever happens, I’ll be ok.”?

Try out the 2 phrases if you like:

“I am enough”

AND

“I’ll be OK.”

See which one makes you feel stronger. I’m voting for the latter.?

A CASE FOR CHANGING HOW WE CHANGE OUR BELIEFS

You may say, “that’s all fine but you still haven’t told me how to achieve this belief”. And that brings me to my second case for change. I’d like to make a case for changing how we build better beliefs. Rather than trying to reverse a lifetime of ingrained thinking (which is ultimately what a belief is) we can take an indirect approach which I think is far more effective.?

We can attack the old belief whilst it’s not looking, so to speak.?

This is because of the cognitive framework. What we think affects how we feel which affects how we behave. What we feel affects how we think which affects how we behave. And how we behave affects how we feel and how we think. And all other permutations you can think of. So in the same way, what we FEEL and what we DO will affect what we ultimately BELIEVE (because beliefs are simply ingrained thinking habits by another name). So we don’t need to wrestle with our beliefs AT ALL. We can do something over here, and reap the benefits over there.?

It’s actually kind of magic.?

So my proposal is that we change what we feel and what we do in order to change our beliefs.?

Now you might reasonably ask “how on earth do I change how I feel?”?

I’m glad you asked. Let’s take the feeling of fear as this is the main emotion in question here; i.e. the fear of not being good enough.?

CHANGING EMOTIONS

Now I need to share another really cool thing about emotions. They are temporary. Just like clouds in the sky, they move along. And then some different clouds come along. In other words, they are in constant stage of flux. They are constantly CHANGING. Think about a time when you’ve felt incredibly stressed or frustrated and you feel like it’s the most important thing in the world, and then a few moments later the feeling has passed and you feel completely different. In few days you’ll probably struggle to figure out why you were so upset. In a few months, you’ll probably have forgotten about it entirely. Which means it probably wasn’t worth all that worry and fear. So how does that help us to change how we feel when we are scared? Well there’s a very cool technique I’d like to share with you.?

It’s call distress tolerance. And in my opinion this is a skill we have forgotten about in todays’ instant gratification society. We are simply not used to sitting with any kind of discomfort. But that doesn’t mean we can’t. The reason why it’s worth doing this, is the less we fight, fuel or try to bury our emotions, the sooner they pass. It’s a bit like when you clench up to resist physical pain - it actually makes it worse (learned that one during childbirth). If you can let the emotion sweep over you without resisting it, it GOES AWAY OF ITS OWN ACCORD. And then, just like that, you feel different. THIS is how we change how we feel.?

The advantage of practising distress tolerance is that every time we do this we are training ourselves that we CAN tolerate difficulty. “I am scared, but I can tolerate it and it will pass”. And every time we do that we are learning “I got through it, I’m stronger than I thought.”

CHANGING BEHAVIOUR

We can also change what we do. It is entirely possible to do something we don’t feel like doing. Just remember the last time you laughed at a joke your oafish boss made or you played along with your children’s make-believe world. We are capable of DOING extraordinary things even when our thoughts and feelings don’t match up. And because of the cognitive framework, how we behave will affect how we feel and what we think.?

So when we feel that familiar sense of fear when someone brings up change, instead of screaming and burning your head under a pillow, you can simply choose to do something different.?

Just say these words, “That’s interesting, why is that?” Smile, and then listen fully. Give your full attention to what they are saying. And let the fear be replaced by curiosity.?

And every time you DO something even when you don’t feel like you are teaching your brain that you are not hostage to your fear. That you can do what serves you best even in the presence of that fear. And you are learning “I’m braver than I thought”. And, as if by magic, you will start to feel better and think more positively.

To recap:

1) Practice distress tolerance.?

2 )Ask a question, even if you don’t feel like it.

EVERY time you do this you are learning that you are stronger and braver than you thought. And you are creating new evidence for a better belief.?

And then one day, you’ll wake up and you’ll realise you have a new belief.

“Whatever happens I’ll be ok.”

I told you. It’s magic.?

Now you can march into the changing landscape.?You won’t know what’s coming and there will be setbacks. You will be scared. You will assume the worst. You will worry about what it means about you. But you will have everything you need to face this. Because you are stronger and braver than you ever imagined.?

In summary,

?? We fear change because we are programmed to expect the worst. We also fear change because it often ignites our own self-doubt.?

?? Rather than trying to force ourselves to believe “I am enough”, we can change how we act and feel to build a better belief.?

??♂? Learn to sit with discomfort, whether its fear, anxiety, frustration or anger. You’ll notice how everything changes, including emotions and over time you’ll gain confidence in your ability to deal with whatever the future brings.?

?? Practice DOING what serves you best even if you don’t feel like it. You’ll learn that whatever happens you are still in control of your actions and you can choose to replace defensive behaviour with open questions.

??♀? Every time you do this you are building a new belief “Whatever happens I’ll be ok”. And then you’ll feel confident, maybe even excited about change.?

Go get em tiger.?

Sarah Furness is former combat helicopter pilot, executive coach and keynote speaker.?This blog was written as part of her research for her newest speech?“How to be Curious not Furious; the key to continuous improvement” which will be available from mid-June 22.?If you’d like more information about her keynote speeches visit sarahfurness.com

If you’d like further support on self belief and/or change please email?[email protected]