How you’d explain it to grandma at Thanksgiving dinner
This book explores why it’s so hard for people to change, even when we know what we want and are motivated to change. (How many times have we committed - and been motivated - to exercise more regularly??) The key, according to the authors, is changing your mindset; changing your behavior is insufficient. And to do that requires a look at not only what you want to achieve, but what you are currently doing that prevents you from achieving it: what fears or opposing motivators are holding you back from making the desired change, and what assumptions you are making about those fears.
Suppose, Grandma, you struggle to delegate. You know it’s important to delegate, and are overwhelmed with the work on your plate, but continue to accept tasks without asking for help. According to the immunity-to-change model, the key to change is uncovering the barriers keeping you from delegating. What do you fear about letting go of some work? Which competing commitments are fighting against delegation? Maybe you fear that if you delegate, you will be acting selfishly and letting down your team. The big assumption there might be that if you set boundaries on your work, you will become a selfish team member. Now that you have identified your concerns, you can begin testing the validity of those assumptions.
Once you uncover what is holding you back, and challenge the assumptions underlying the barrier, you can move forward and embrace the change.
If you do one thing based on this read . . .
Create an immunity map the next time you struggle with changing a behavior.
Write down:
The action that you are committing to;
The behaviors that you are engaging in/not engaging in instead;
The things that you are afraid will happen if you do the action that you are committing to/the competing commitments that discourage the new behavior; and
The assumptions underlying those fears.
Then, consider small ways to test - and potentially disprove - those assumptions.
“What do we really want and what will we do to keep from getting it?”
Three Clear Takeaways
Behaviors are the tip of the iceberg. Changing our behaviors takes more than just a strong will and self-discipline. There are reasons why we haven’t changed in the past (and why such a large percentage of people don’t make the changes that they commit to). We have to dig deeper to get to the root of the immunity to change.
Get to your story. Many people share similar goals and obstructive behaviors (e.g. goal to lose weight, but obstructive behavior of eating too much), but the hidden fears/motivators behind those behaviors can vary person to person (e.g. overeating out of a fear of emptiness vs. overeating because food is equated with love and caring vs. overeating in order to make oneself unappealing to potential romantic interests). The key to making a true change is found by uncovering these hidden fears and motivators.
Change will not happen overnight. Once you discover your hidden fears and motivators, and the assumptions underlying those concerns, you must then commit the time and energy to doing the work. The authors have found generally that if you can dedicate about 30 minutes per week to testing your assumptions and engaging in other relevant exercises, you will likely see significant change in about 12 weeks. That may seem like a long time, but it’s better than setting (and soon breaking) the same resolutions every January!