Tag Archives: change

The New Year: A Road Paved with Good Intentions

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roadOne week back to school.  The talk in the teachers’ lounge turns to New Year’s Resolutions.

Suzanne:  This time I’m really going to do it.  No more junk food, and no more extra weight.  I’m also resolving not to take so much work home with me every weekend.  I have to get a better work/life balance.

Celine: I hear you.  I’m hoping for a healthy year too and looking forward to creating some special memories with my son. He is 5 already! I have set an intention to make healthy choices and slow down when I’m with my son.

Suzanne:  I do this every year.  But this time it’s going to be different.  I want to lose 20 pounds and work out three or four times a week so I can be the size I was when we first got married.  I have a high school reunion this year and I want to be able to hold my own with my classmates.

Suzanne has set some firm resolutions for herself.  She has identified what she wants to change and has a plan for how she’ll make it happen.  Celine, at first glance, doesn’t seem to be as focused.  So who’s more likely to see the changes she hopes for in the new year?

Let’s take a closer look at what’s happening.  Suzanne is focused on what she sees as problems she wants to fix.  She knows a lot about what she doesn’t want and some idea of where she hopes to be – 20 pounds lighter and perhaps not grading papers on the weekend.  So she’s holding two sets of information in her head at one time, what she wants to leave behind and where she hopes to be, or, what exists in the past and what might exist in the future.  Celine also has a vision for what she hopes for in the coming year.  Because she hasn’t started from a place of fixing a problem her attention is focused on the change she hopes to experience.

So who’s more likely to be successful?   Suzanne has a specific number of pounds she wants to shed, so she can easily measure when she’s a quarter of the way there, a half, etc. Celine’s goal to be healthier in the coming year seems to lack a measurable outcome.  What constitutes greater health?  How will she know she’s on track?

Imagine we’re back in the lounge a couple months later.  Suzanne is picking the cheese off a piece of pizza some parent has provided for the staff.

Suzanne:  I know I shouldn’t have this.  In fact, I don’t know who I think I’m kidding, I’m going to eat the crust anyway.  I am so bad at dieting! I lost 7 pounds in January, but I put them all right back and then some!  It’s all the stress of this job.  It just gets to me. How about your ‘intentions’?  How do you work on those with all these tests to mark?

Celine:  It really is tough.  I hate when I have papers to grade at night.  My son and I have a little game we’ve been playing lately when I bring work home.  He puts on my old reading glasses, gets out his coloring book and starts circling the words and letters.  Then he writes A++++ and laughs and laughs!! It helps make the work seem less intrusive.   I also tend to eat a little more during exam season.  I’ve been trying out new healthy recipes, though and the family seems to approve.

The challenge Suzanne is having is that she is not trying so much to BE something, rather she is trying NOT to be what she currently is.  All of her attention is focused on what she doesn’t want.  Our actions tend to move in the direction of our focus.  Think of the Pink Elephant experiment.  If I tell you that for the next three minutes you must NOT think of a Pink Elephant, that pachyderm is going to creep right into your thoughts – if even to note that you are most definitely not thinking of it.

Celine’s intentions allow her to imagine and hope for changes. Her energy is future focused and the desire is present for her in her daily routines including preparing meals.  She hasn’t stopped taking work home, but her intent to make memories with her son has shaped how she meets that demand.

What is likely to happen in December?  Suzanne may or may not have been able to shed the pounds.  If she has lost anything less than the 20 she resolved to lose, she is likely to count this as a failure.  She may feel resentful of the work she is still bringing home, possibly increasing how out of balance her work and life feel.  If she stays mindful of her intention, Celine will make moment to moment choices throughout the year that are directly related to the change she wants to see.  As she sits to write her lesson plans, she is aware of her intent to create memories with her son and actively looks for ways to attend to him and incorporate him into what she’s doing. Her intention becomes a force of energy rather than a chore or obstacle and is likely to lead to a more sustainable change long term.

So what intentions do you plan to set for the coming year?

What it Takes to Go with the Flow (Part 1)

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chameleon“I just don’t do well with change.” Most of us know someone like this, someone who eats the same meal every Monday or must take the same route home from work each day.  Perhaps you yourself are one of these people.  The thought of trying a new restaurant or deviating from your annual summer vacation spot seems preposterous.  The news that a new co-worker or supervisor has joined the team can mean weeks of worry.

While stability and predictability may offer comfort, our ability to adapt to change is directly linked to overall life satisfaction and happiness.  Flexible people tend to be healthier, experience less anxiety and have more fulfilling relationships.   Most jobs in the market today require employees to be multi-faceted and to quickly respond to new initiatives and opportunities. Education guidelines and standards seem to change with the seasons and teachers who are not agile can get bogged down by new curriculum and measurements.

People who assert that they ‘can’t handle change’ say they know this about themselves with certainty.  However, what they are likely more aware of is how they have been in the past and what they fear in the future.  They are probably not terribly aware of how they are affected by the immediate and present moment.  Consider the chameleon.  It does not change its color based on where it expects to go next.  What is unique in its survival technique is that the chameleon adapts to its immediate surroundings.

For humans, this is a little more difficult.  In order to adapt to or reject our surroundings we first have to learn how to become aware of them.  We need to learn to take in information from the environment and to pay attention to our own internal cues. We need to know more about how we make sense of our environment and ultimately find a way to be comfortable looking at our own areas for growth.

For many people it is easier to focus on the failures that have come from times we’ve tried to make a change. New situations start to feel like obstacles to growth rather than opportunities. Without a sense of optimism about our circumstances it be hard to imagine wanting to face challenges at all.

In Part II of this topic we’ll look at the ways we make sense of our world and how that may be keeping us stuck in the familiar.  Life may begin at the edge of our comfort zone, as my coffee cup says, but I sure don’t want to get too close to an edge without knowing more about my ability to move around it.

 

Making Resolutions Work

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resolutionsRealistic resolutions are ones that we have a plan to achieve, with concrete actionable steps to help us get there. We need to have the right motivation, supports in place to assist us, and a way to sustain the gains. But most importantly we need to attend to resistance.

Resistance is made up of the interplay between the forces for sameness and the forces for change. Here is an example. If you set up a resolution to lose weight, which involves a force for change including a desire to look and feel better, are you also attending to the force for sameness in this case it might be an instinct to eat when bored, stressed, or primal urge to consume chocolate.

Forces for sameness are what keep us doing the same things in spite of knowing they may not be good for us. Often times these forces are made up of very old patterns that were learned in childhood or young adulthood. If you dealt with stress (your parents fighting) by hiding in your room under your covers, you may do something similar as an adult, such as withdrawing from friends and family.

Resistance may also include a driving force for change that is based on external rewards as opposed to internal. Being more creative with our lesson plans, when we really don’t feel inspired or because it seems like the right thing to do, won’t work. We need to find an internal sense of motivation if we want to sustain any type of change.

Remember that you became a teacher because you believe in developing people. You may feel sapped of your enthusiasm by a chaotic or dysfunctional system, which robs you of your energy to do good things. If this is the case, consider how you can either influence your system in a healthier direction or take care of yourself better in spite of what you are up against.

Rebuilding your passion for life includes a healthy dose of good self-care. You are a caretaker who needs to put yourself first more often in order to have any chance of doing for others. Be a good role model this year and treat yourself well, making only one or two resolutions that you know you will stick with.