When You're Fall'ing

The leaves starting to change has got me thinking about other kinds of change (solid segway there).?Anyways I wrote this one just as the leaves were starting to change a few weeks back but the content is evergreen (haha) so it should be just as relevant now.

I love the fall but growing up I always used to resist those first few trees that started to go when it was still summer and I didn’t want to think about school or getting back into a regular routine. A few weeks later though it was simply time to embrace the turn of the seasons and really enjoy the vivid colors as well as the other pleasant vibes that come along with the autumn season.

Like the Fall there are certain aspects of change in the broad sense that we really love and enjoy, it definitely depends on the type of change but for the most part, changes have both positives and negatives depending on how you look at it. Fortunately, we don’t really get a say in how the season changes, it just happens and we have to go along with it and adapt or move to a place with different seasons (we must choose a different type of change), I say fortunately because choosing change is often a very difficult thing. Some changes entice us more than others and so we happily commit to them and for obvious reasons, like getting married, or going on a holiday. On the other hand, a great many other changes give us far more grief and resistance even when they have very positive reasons behind them. An obvious example would be losing weight or getting in shape or giving up sugar, usually, these changes result in very positive outcomes but at the same time, they are often met with a high level of resistance because of the perceived or real sacrifice involved in making that change happen.

But I don’t want to talk about the weighing of various changes or the value of delayed gratification in decision making, I want to zero in on a more subtle but very relevant aspect of personal change that can easily slide past our awareness and so not really factor into our speculation, discernment, and planning. This aspect is the reality that very often, “change” in the strict sense of the word does not look like what we think it will look like. What does this mean? Well in my experience my own ideas of how a specific change might take place in “real life” are about ten percent accurate at the very best. This is both liberating and troubling at the same time. On the one hand, it can open our eyes to the fact that we really can’t predict things very well so we can save energy by not investing in what might be unproductive planning, but on the other hand, it challenges us to recognize that most of the scenario is going to be different than we thought it was. This then begs the question, how prepared are we really to make this change? And really the best answer we can hope for is, “as reasonably prepared as possible given the circumstances” But even this falls short because it is once again based on our fallible speculation.

I am probably starting to annoy you at this point so hopefully, this will start making sense soon. The point I am getting at is that we often cannot see or appreciate the real cost of the desired change until we begin to go down the path towards and as a result begin to receive feedback.?

To make a change means you have to show up in a different way, it will mean you have to cut out “this” and add in “that”, it will mean you can't be around or hang out with so and so, and you need to stop going to this place or that place, it will mean you need to let some daily activities go and take on some different ones, it will mean your relationships will be disrupted at some level as they currently are because suddenly you will be a slightly different person than you were before. If we are to make real change then it must manifest in how we show up in the world, so if we are not seeing any evidence of this chances are we have not really changed.

Ever read the play?Waiting For Godot? (pronounced “God-oh”) If not, don’t bother, the whole thing is about the characters waiting for someone (Godot) who never comes, so they never do anything, it’s really depressing… but the moral (for me is) if you are not getting any feedback at all then you might be growing stagnant.

When we don't experience dissonance or feedback in some form at some level, it means that all we did was have a nice idea about change, we didn't really make it happen, because if it happened we would receive some type of feedback or resistance at the very least. Here it is important to distinguish between?feedback?and?results?because they are not always the same thing. In fact, you likely will not see any results for some time because that is usually how feedback loops work (check out the concept of the proverbial “flywheel” my friend Sam wrote a great article about it?here?) but, you will see some feedback.

So what is the feedback?

Personal and behavioral change is especially hard because we can't comprehend how difficult it is to be different in a relationship or a familiar environment or workplace. We can’t comprehend how much commitment it takes to continue to show up as something different over a period of time until it becomes habituated.

Our environments are strong and they quickly pull us toward our old behavior. Comments like, “Come on you always do this” or “But you love doing this” or “But this is the way we have always done it” and,?“The old you would have done this” etc are all examples of the disruption (feedback)?that you have caused by choosing to behave differently. If you are hearing this type of thing it is a good sign that you are actually making the change in real life and not just in your head. This is not to say that the people around you will always discourage positive change but it is very common for positive change to be met with some level of resistance especially if you have been the same way for a long time. On the other hand, if you are making the wrong changes this feedback can be equally important; this depends on the specific scenario, the nature of and motives behind the changes as well as where you are headed and what type of “fruit” the changes are bearing, and finally the level to which you trust yourself and your own decisions, but this is a separate discussion.

I heard someone say once that willpower is never stronger than the environment it operates in. I did not fully agree with this at the time but now I can see the value in this claim, not in the absolutist sense but in a pragmatic sense, the chances of long-term success are just not very good if your environment is working against you.

Another thing someone once told me was that when it comes to personal failures we often put ourselves to the test in an imprudent way, we enter into scenarios that are essentially “rigged” against us and we stay to see if we are “strong enough” to push through, and then in dismay, we find that we are not…?but that's not quite the full story.?We don’t just fail to follow through with or honor our commitment to change because we are totally weak and incapable. It is more because we are not really making the change on the full level. What I mean is that if nothing changes on the external level (ie our environment) then it is very hard to manifest the changes we have committed to on an internal level.

Example: You want to stop getting hammered every Saturday night so you resolve to only have 6 drinks and not 12, but when you go to the bar with the gang and you get 6 drinks, there is no way you are going to turn down that next round of shots, especially when Johnny is paying for them…

Solution: 1. You don’t go to the event at all until you build up some momentum or practice or other develop some other tools to be accountable.

Solution 2. You offer to drive for the evening so you are not able to have more than one or two drinks if anything at all.?

Solution 3. You commit to something you really enjoy the next morning so that you have something else to look forward to that is beyond just drinking for the night and you want to be in good shape for it.

Solution 4. You explain to one of your friends the situation beforehand telling them how important this change is to you and why, and you ask them to hold you accountable.

So, long story short, if we really want to make sustainable change then ideas and intentions are good but external shifts to change to our environment are much better.

The next step is to tailor this approach to your own specific point of personal change, where are you stuck or struggling? What are some ways you can set yourself up for success right now?

The low hanging fruit might look like the following:

Put some dumbbells in your room, Have someone you are accountable to, Leave your phone in the kitchen when you go to bed, lay your clothes out the night before, delete an app off your phone, physically clean up your environment, Set up your schedule to minimize time with negative people, avoid events that get you off track… the list goes on.

The reality is we “mean” well, but we often don’t “do” well, and that should not alarm or surprise us, the solution is setting up our environment for success so that meaning becomes doing,

Yours in the falls and the changes,

Ben

P.S. If you enjoyed this and think someone else would to I would love for you to share it with them! :)