Identify and overcome the limiting beliefs that hold you back from achieving your goals: Immunity to Change Steps 1 and 2
Do you sometimes feel that you are not unlocking your full potential and not achieving your goals? Do you sometimes have the sense that you are stuck in a loop where the same blocks or problems keep on getting in your way? Would you like some insight into how you can shift those blocks and start moving towards what you want?
We can help.
The Centre for Applied Transformation has a powerful tool for increasing self-awareness and getting unstuck. The Immunity to Change (I2C) process was initially developed by Harvard professors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey and provides a path for individuals (and teams) to identify and overcome limiting beliefs, the unconscious drivers that hold them back from achieving their goals.
The process has a series of steps that are designed to help people identify their hidden barriers to change, challenge them, and ultimately overcome them. In this article we will explore the first two steps of the I2C process.
The first step in the Immunity to Change process is to identify clearly something that we don't like and to re-frame this complaint into a statement about what we would like to be different, what we want instead.
A lot of us complain to ourselves and to each other on a fairly constant basis. We all can spend a great deal of time thinking and talking about the things we don't want, don't like, or have a negative view about. And most of the time we don't even realise we are complaining, so common has this way of thinking and talking become. The proverbial water-cooler-conversation in organisational settings can usually be guaranteed to be at least 50% complaint.
But what is so important and valuable about complaint is that it contains the seeds of something really powerful and beneficial. In every complaint are clues about what we want to be occurring instead. Hidden inside the complaint is a statement about what we want, what is important to us, what we would move towards and what we would work to achieve.
So, I2C - Step 1 is to rewrite our judging, complaining thinking and speaking into a declaration of what we would like (to be happening) instead. We re-frame a negative thought into a positive one. We re-imagine the situation, to turn it from something that is de-motivating and de-mobilising into one that generates excitement, energy, and moves us towards action. We create a statement about what we are committed to achieve.
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The second step of the I2C process requires us to take stock of the situation we are in, and to take responsibility for what we did, or did not do (our 50%) that has ended us up here. This does not mean that we take all of the responsibility; we are never 100% responsible. There are always other people involved in and contributing to both good and bad situations.
But we did do something, or we did not do something that has ended us up here. We might have said something, or we might not have said something. We did something, or we did not do something. And we can connect that action or lack of an action to our current situation.
This Step 2 is not about blaming yourself. It is not asserting that your haven't tried. It is not saying that you did anything wrong.
It is a dispassionate, behavioural description of what you did decide, do, say, or act on that has resulted in the situation you are currently in.
It is also not about what you or anyone else 'should' or 'could' have done differently. It is merely a calm and objective description of your actions.
For example, you might say, 'I could see that the argument was getting out of hand, BUT I didn't excuse myself from the table and leave the room. I stayed seated and watched the whole thing play out in from of me...'. Or, 'I really want people to take responsibility for their own work quality, BUT, whenever anyone asks me to edit (AKA FINISH!!) their work, I don't say "no", I agree and do it, even though I end up feeling resentful.'
These first 2 steps of the Immunity to Change process lay the groundwork for the next 2 steps. In steps 3 and 4 we will gain understanding about our competing commitments, and then explore the underlying assumptions we have made that can result in us being stuck in a rut.
Our Immunity to Change process is a powerful tool that we have used to help hundreds of people, in all walks of private and professional life, get un-stuck. If you are feeling stuck, at loose ends, not getting what you want, or uncertain why you are in the same place still, let's talk.