Many of today’s business leaders talk about the importance of change, and of the ability of companies and people to be accepting of change. They talk about how today’s workforce must learn how to change. Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen and heard, there is much more talk about change than there really is change. Individuals embrace the idea or concept of change, but when it comes right down to it, they don’t really change when change it needed.
Until a person’s mental programming changes, they won’t really have changed. Oh sure, they may say they have changed. And they might even appear to have changed. But until the neuro pathways in the brain have formed that control the new behavior, the person really hasn’t changed.
So, how do you know when someone has changed a behavior – when their mental programming has changed? You could put them into a stressful, uncomfortable, and/or pressure-filled situation. In these conditions, most people go back to their old ways – their old habits or mental programming. When pushed outside their comfort zone, people typically resort to their old ways. If their programming hasn’t changed, they will do and act much the same as in the past – there will be little to no change. If, under pressure, they behave or perform differently, then programming has changed, and there is real change.
You’ve probably heard that it takes 28 days to form a new habit. That’s one theory. I don’t disagree with this general statement, but in reality it is incomplete. It really depends on how often you repeat the behavior or skill or whatever it is you’re wanting to change. If you do it once in 28 days, I’ll guarantee it hasn’t changed mental programming. If you do it 100 times in one day, it will have more of an impact on the change and the programming to support it.
Of course, there is a method whereby you can speed up the process of change, and I’m talking about mental imagery. Most people call this visualization. The problem with the word visualization is that it refers to mentally seeing a picture of the new behavior, skill, or whatever, but it doesn’t refer to the use of other senses. And that’s the problem with many peoples’ use of mental imagery – they don’t use enough senses. They don’t imagine the feel, the sound, the taste, and the smell of the activity.
The more senses you use during mental imagery, the more effective it will be. If you imagine the sights, the sounds, the feel, the smells, the tastes, and even the emotions that go along with a behavior, you are more likely to develop the mental programming to act with that behavior. If you only see yourself acting with that specific behavior, it will take much longer to develop the subconscious habit of acting this way.
So, if it’s difficult for just one person to change, imagine how hard it is for an entire team or company to change. Perhaps I’ll write about that in a future blog…
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