Self-change is tough, but it's not
impossible, nor does it have to be traumatic, according
to change expert Stan Goldberg, Ph.D. Here, he lays out the 10
principles he deems necessary for successful change.
My mother died
on Christmas day of a massive heart attack. I later counted 15 self-help books on
her shelves, but found each offered only broad ideas; none provided the
specifics necessary to save her life.
Like my mother, many of us
want to change but simply don't know how to do it. After 25 years of
researching how people change, I've discovered 10 major principles that
encompass all self-change strategies. I've broken down those principles
and, using one example—a man's desire to be more punctual—I demonstrate
strategies for implementing change in your own life.
All Behaviors Are Complex
Research by psychologist James O.
Prochaska, Ph.D., an internationally renowned expert on planned change,
has repeatedly found that change occurs in stages. To increase the
overall probability of success, divide a behavior into parts and learn
each part successively.
Strategy: Break down the
behavior
Almost all behaviors can be broken down. Separate your
desired behavior into smaller, self-contained units.
He wanted to
be on time for work, so he wrote down what that would entail: waking
up, showering, dressing, preparing breakfast, eating, driving, parking
and buying coffee—all before 9 a.m.
Change Is Frightening
We
resist change, but fear
of the unknown can result in clinging to status quo behaviors—no matter
how bad they are.
Strategy: Examine the consequences
Compare all possible consequences of both your status quo and
desired behaviors. If there are more positive results associated with
the new behavior, your fears of the unknown are unwarranted.
If
he didn't become more punctual, the next thing he'd be late for is the
unemployment office. There was definitely a greater benefit to changing
than to not changing.
Strategy: Prepare your observers
New behaviors can frighten the people observing them, so introduce
them slowly.
Becoming timely overnight would make co-workers
suspicious. He started arriving by 9 a.m. only on important days.
Strategy: Be realistic
Unrealistic goals
increase fear. Fear increases the probability of failure.
Mornings
found him sluggish, so he began preparing the night before and doubled
his morning time.
Change Must Be Positive
As B.F.
Skinner's early research demonstrates, reinforcement-not punishment-is
necessary for permanent change. Reinforcement can be intrinsic,
extrinsic or extraneous. According to Carol Sansone, Ph.D., a psychology
professor at the University of Utah, one type of reinforcement must be
present for self-change, two would be better than one, and three would
be best.
Strategy: Enjoy the act
Intrinsic
reinforcement occurs when the act is reinforcing.
He loved
dressing well. Seeing his clothes laid out at night was a joyful
experience.
Strategy: Admire the outcome
An act
doesn't have to be enjoyable when the end result is extrinsically
reinforcing. For instance, I hate cleaning my kitchen, but I do it
because I like the sight of a clean kitchen.
After dressing, he
looked in the mirror and enjoyed the payoff from his evening
preparation: He looked impeccable.
Strategy: Reward
yourself
Extraneous reinforcement isn't directly connected to the
act or its completion. A worker may despise his manufacturing job but
will continue working for a good paycheck.
Whenever he met his
target, he put $20 into his Hawaii vacation fund.
Being Is
Easier Than Becoming
In my karate class of 20 students, the
instructor yelled, "No pain, no gain," amid grueling instructions. After
four weeks, only three students remained. Uncomfortable change becomes
punishing, and rational people don't continue activities that are more
painful than they are rewarding.
Strategy: Take baby
steps
In one San Francisco State University study, researchers
found that participants were more successful when their goals were
gradually approximated. Write down the behavior you want to change. Then
to the right, write your goal. Draw four lines between the two and
write a progressive step on each that takes you closer to your goal.
The first week, he would arrive by 9:20 a.m., then five minutes
earlier each subsequent week until he achieved his goal.
Strategy: Simplify the process
Methods of changing are often
unnecessarily complicated and frenetic. Through simplicity, clarity
arises.
Instead of waiting in line at Starbucks, he would buy
coffee in his office building.
Strategy: Prepare for
problems
Perfect worlds don't exist, and neither do perfect
learning situations. Pamela Dunston, Ph.D., of Clemson University, found
cueing to be an effective strategy.
His alarm clock failed to
rouse him, so for the first month he'd use a telephone wake-up service.
Slower Is Better
Everything has its own natural speed; when
altered, unpleasant things happen. Change is most effective when it
occurs slowly, allowing behaviors to become automatic.
Strategy: Establish calm
Life is like a stirred-up lake:
Allow it to calm and the mud will settle, clearing the water. The same
is true for change.
To make mornings less harried, he no longer
ran errands on his way to work.
Strategy: Appreciate
the path
Author Ursula LeGuin once said, "It's good to have an end to journey
toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." Don't devise an
arduous path; it should be as rewarding as the goal.
He enjoyed
almost everything involved in being punctual. The coffee could be
better, but it was a small price to pay.
Know More, Do Better
Surprise spells disaster for people seeking change. Knowing more
about the process allows more control over it.
Strategy:
Monitor your behaviors
Some therapists insist on awareness of
both current and desired behaviors, but research suggests it's
sufficient to be aware of just the new one.
In a journal, he
recorded the time taken for each step of work preparation.
Strategy: Request feedback
A study in the British
Journal of Psychology found that reflecting on personal experiences
with others is key to successful change. But because complimenting new
behavior implies that the observer disliked the old one, it can make
observers feel uncomfortable. If, for example, you were once demeaning
to people, few would now say, "It's nice talking with you since you
stopped being a jerk." Give the observer permission, suggests Paul
Schutz, Ph.D., of the University of Georgia, and you will receive
feedback.
Every Friday he asked a friend how well he was doing with his time
problem.
Strategy: Understand the outcome
Success
is satisfying, and if you know why you succeeded or failed, similar
strategies can be applied when changing other behaviors.
Every
morning, he analyzed why he did or did not arrive to work on time.
Change
Requires Structure
Many people view structure as restrictive,
something that inhibits spontaneity. While spontaneity is wonderful for
some activities, it's a surefire method for sabotaging change.
Strategy: Identify what works
Classify all activities and
materials you're using as either helpful, neutral or unhelpful in
achieving your goal. Eliminate unhelpful ones, make neutrals into
positives and keep or increase the positives.
After evaluating
his morning routine, he replaced time-consuming breakfasts with quick
protein drinks.
Strategy: Revisit your plan regularly
Review every day how and why you're changing and the consequences of
success and failure. Research by Daniel Willingham, Ph.D., a psychology
professor at the University of Virginia, showed that repetition
increases the probability of success.
Each night he reviewed his
plan, smiled and said, "Hawaii, here I come."
Strategy:
Logically sequence events
According to behavior expert Richard
Foxx, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Penn State University at
Harrisburg, it's important to sequence the aspects associated with
learning a new behavior in order of level of difficulty or timing.
He
completed all bathroom activities, then ate breakfast.
Practice
Is Necessary
Practice is another key approach to change,
suggests one study on changing conscious experience published recently
in the British Journal of Psychology. I've found that the
majority of failures occur because this principle is ignored. Practice
makes new behaviors automatic and a natural part of who we are.
Strategy: Use helpers
Not all behaviors can be learned on
your own. Sometimes it's useful to enlist the help of a trusted friend.
When even the telephone answering service failed to wake him up, he
asked his secretary to call.
Strategy: Practice in many
settings
If you want to use a new behavior in different
environments, practice it in those or similar settings. Dubbing this
"generalization," psychologists T.F. Stokes and D.M. Baer found it
critical in maintaining new behaviors.
During the first week he
would try to be punctual for work. The following week, he would try to
be on time for his regularly scheduled tennis game.
New
Behaviors Must Be Protected
Even when flawlessly performed, new
behaviors are fragile and disappear if unprotected.
Strategy:
Control your environment
Environmental issues such as noise and
level of alertness may interfere with learning new behaviors. After
identifying what helps and what hinders, increase the helpers and
eliminate the rest.
Having a nightcap before bed made it
difficult to wake up in the morning, so he avoided alcohol after 7 p.m.
Strategy: Use memory aides
Because
a new behavior is neither familiar nor automatic, it's easy to forget.
Anything that helps memory is beneficial.
He kept a list in each
room of his apartment describing the sequence of things to be done and
the maximum allowable time to complete them.
Small Successes Are
Big
Unfortunately, plans for big successes often result in big
failures. Focus instead on a series of small successes. Each little
success builds your reservoir of self-esteem;
one big failure devastates it.
Strategy: Map your
success
Approach each step as a separate mission and you'll
eventually arrive at the end goal.
For each morning activity he
completed within his self-allotted time limit, he rewarded himself by
putting money into his Hawaii-getaway fund.
The process of
changing from what you are to what you would like to become can be
either arduous and frustrating or easy and rewarding. The effort
required for both paths is the same. Choose the first and you'll
probably recycle yourself endlessly. Apply my 10 principles, and change,
once only a slight possibility, becomes an absolute certainty. The
choice is yours.
Stan Goldberg, Ph.D., is a private speech therapist (www.speechstrategies.com), a change consultant and the author of four books
on change.
From Psychology
Today by Stan
Goldberg, published Sept 01, 2002 - last reviewed on August
30, 2010