Can I Change?

At a two-day workshop I ran earlier this week, I had one person who made a comment "I can never change, I've been like this all of my life". What disappointed me was I had just spent 2 days telling him that he could change....

Maybe there are some people that just don't want to change, perhaps that's more to the point.  If you want to make a change in your life you have to be open to suggestions and then to work hard at making the change.  There is no quick fix to changing a life-time of habits, sorry. 

Let's start at the beginning - apart from genetic differences most of us are born the same.  By this I mean that we don't have habits, perceptions, fears, prejudices, or the myriad of other factors that get in the way of living life. To prove this fact, take a moment to watch very young children playing in a Kindergarten. They will play together, share toys, laugh at each other, help each other, and enjoy their own company regardless of how their friends look and behave.

As we grow and learn, our brain starts to take on the factors mentioned above, and with these we form our habits.  The good news is that just as a habit is learned, it can be unlearned by repetition. 

Take the example I started with, the man who said he could never change.  He said that as he had come from England and went straight into the military from High School, he had such a structured upbringing he could never change.  I asked him if during his military career “had the army ever changed the weapons they used in combat”.  “Of course they did” he replied.  And how did you learn to use that weapon, of course by repetition.  He stopped and pondered, oh I get it now.

Yes, it takes time.  And yes, it is damn hard work.  Don't believe those who tell you it takes 21 days to change a habit, it takes about 60 to 66 days.  However, you will notice a slight change after 21 days and it becomes easier from that point forward.

A leopard cannot change its spots because that is their genetic makeup.  What they can do is learn to hunt a different way.  You can too.

Are You Assertive or Aggressive

Do you often find that something that you have said in a conversation or written in an email has caused an adverse reaction in the other person and you don't know why? It could be that your communication style is too aggressive.

Aggressive communication makes you look like a bully and sends a message that you are right and everyone else is wrong. It provokes anger, resentment and sometimes a desire for revenge. Words in a sentence such as unforgivable, unacceptable, and idiotic are examples of aggressive words. Additionally, these words introduce the defence cycle in communication. The listener/reader becomes angry, wants revenge, goes on the defence and says something that inflames the situation. You then become angry, want revenge, well you get the picture. Incidentally the communication defence cycle is similar to the anger, violence, grief and sleep cycles as all have five parts to them.

Assertive communication on the other hand is based on mutual respect and is not just about what you say but also about the way that you say it. Assertiveness displays your message better, respects the view of others and shows confidence. Instead of using the word 'unacceptable', try the word 'unhelpful'. Replace 'breaching privacy is unforgiveable' with 'I'm sure that you will agree that we all value our privacy'. Rather than say 'to disregard policy is outrageous', use 'we must be cautious when disregarding policy'. You can temper your adjectives without necessarily changing the message.

Positive and assertive communications when used together are empowering. Positive communication focuses on moving forward, are solution based, and concentrate on the positive aspect of the message. If looking back on something that has gone wrong, examine the cause and not the issue. Always end a message by offering a way forward. If you structure your written and oral communications in this way people are sure to read them.

Finally, unless you are preparing a formal report for the Board of Directors, keep your communication short and sharp. Research tells us that very few formal reports are fully read, most people go straight to the executive summary because they aren’t interested in the detail. If the detail is shorter, you will encourage them to read the entire document.

Trick Your Brain, It's Easy

I am not an expert in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) but I have used a few of these techniques to trick my brain from thinking badly about a negative event thus reducing the emotional reaction each time thoughts of the negative event arrive in my head.

NLP provides an understanding of the mental and cognitive processes behind our behaviour to certain situations.  We can actually reprogram our brain using these techniques.  By changing the way we think about a situation we can change our emotional reaction and our perception as a result.  So how does that work?

Inside our brain is the amygdala which is responsible for our emotions.  When someone attacks us for example, the amygdala sends a signal to alert our emergency response mechanisms so that we can fight or flee.  The amygdala is attached to our hippocampus, this part of our brain stores our long-term memory.  So, when we have a bad event the amygdala alerts our response functions and the bad memory is stored for future reference.

This is the brain's way of protecting us so that if a similar event happens in the future we are ready for it.  The hippocampus and amygdala have worked in tandem to burn or 'brand' that bad memory into our brain. 

Taking the example of someone attacking us, every time you have some kind of a reminder or connection to that attack you also have an emotional reaction.  The connection to the attack could be a smell, a sound, a sight, or just a random thought of the attack.  When you are reminded of the attack, the hippocampus alerts the amygdala and you have the same emotional reaction as you had when the attack first occurred.   

While you can never completely remove this bad memory, you can lessen the subsequent emotional reaction each time the thought of the attack comes into your head.  In your mind, take an image of that negative event then put a picture frame around it.  Once you have the image inside the frame you then hang the framed image on a wall.  Now stand back and look at the picture again.  It is just a harmless picture. Our brain has been tricked into thinking the event never actually occurred.  You may have to do this several times to embed the effect. 

There are many other techniques, Dr Google can show you these.  I found this one very good, along with flicking an elastic band around my wrist each time I had a negative thought.  The pain from snapping band distracted my brain. 

Are You Empathic?

Gaining empathy is the first step to controlling difficult or challenging communications with another person.  Without empathy you won’t be able to move forward in the conversation.

Empathy is best described as seeing the situation through the other person’s eyes, as if you were standing in their shoes.  Placing yourself in their position will assist you in identifying the reason for their emotional behaviour. 

Empathy is not sympathy, the latter could be misinterpreted as pity. Empathy is about understanding the other person’s thoughts and feelings, an identification of their circumstances.

By reflecting back what the person has said to you using your own words, including use of the important words that they spoke in their sentences, will assist you to gain empathy. 

Here are some other quick tips to gain empathy;

• If you are talking to the person face-to-face then hold eye contact for around 60% of the time.  Be careful not to hold direct eye contact for too long with overly aggressive people as they will take it as a sign you are looking for a confrontation.
• Lean forward slightly to show an interest if seated, but not too far forward to make it look condescending.
• Mirror some of their body language when the person has calmed.  Mirror body language when someone is aggressive has the same effect as glaring at them. 
• Use their name early in the conversation to show that you are listening and you are an actual person.  Plus, we all like to hear our own name being said by others.
• Always be polite no matter how rude the other person may be.  Words such as “please” and “thank you” will gain you important brownie points when talking with those from the baby boomer generation.
• Respect their point of view.  You may disagree but know that your view may not be right.
• Ask for their permission if you need to go away and do something. This makes the person feel important.
• Use the word “important” when appropriate.  This pays to their ego.

Gaining empathy will lead to establishing a rapport provided you continue to say the right thing.

Prejudice

Prejudice.  Is there ever a single word that immediately provokes such intense emotion? We are often influenced by prejudice in one form or another. To be clear, I am not talking about racial prejudice, I'm talking about prejudgement becoming prejudicial to an open mind.

We prejudge others based on how their looks, what they are wearing, how they talk, what car they drive, who they associate with, where they live, the list goes on. 

Prejudging is more commonly known as generalisations, placing people and things into categories or boxes.  This can be a positive thing and can help keep us safe. You wouldn't walk headlong into a group of rowdy drunk people for example because you know the likely outcome. You prejudged the situation and came to a sound decision.

Prejudging stems from our extrinsic learnings; how we were raised, the friends we had, the interactions with others and a myriad of other influencers. However, prejudging becomes detrimental when it becomes prejudicial because reality is confused with our perceptions. 

Prejudices are based largely from negative events that we encountered which cloud our future interactions. They close-off our minds.

Here's an example.  I trained with the elite military forces of New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. For those that know how hard these people train, you would have a vision of me in your head and placed me into a category.  I trained with these teams on military exercises, I was a negotiator talking on the phone. Now you're brain has probably taken me from one box and placed me into another. 

We do the same with voices.  We hear a voice on the phone and immediately have a vision of what that person looks like and respond accordingly. The last time you heard a voice on the radio you had a vision of that radio host and when you saw them in real life you were fascinated at how that voice could come out of that mouth. It was not the person you had pictured in your mind. When speaking with them in person you probably won’t hear what they are saying because your prejudgement doesn’t meet reality.

The next time you find yourself being influenced by prejudicial thoughts, know that it is just your brain protecting you from earlier encounters. Acknowledge then dismiss these negative thoughts as they are probably incorrect.

Keep an open mind when meeting new people, you will be pleasantly surprised at how similar we all are. Or maybe they aren’t which is even more fascinating.