What aspect of your life won’t shift despite everyone’s best efforts?
It’s possible that situations are resistant to change because of how we approach them.
A lot of situations that aren’t moving in the direction you’d like have certain factors that work to change the status quo, and other factors that work to maintain the status quo.
First, list the factors that naturally move in the desired direction.
Now, list the factors that move in the opposite direction.
(If you’ve ever done a Force-Field analysis, this is a similar idea.)
Think of each group of factors as a loop.
The change loop is balanced out by the constraining loop.
Where we normally place our attention is on reinforcing the strength of the change loop.
The harder you push on the reinforcing loop (the one that left to it’s own devices would become a vicious/virtual runaway spiral) the more the balancing loop responds.
Systems thinking would have us work to weaken the constraints.
Maybe you’re wanting to stop smoking or lose weight.
Instead of increasing your motivation (how’s that willpower method working out for you?) how about identifying the thoughts/beliefs/practices that are constraining your process and seeing if you can lessen their effect? (I find the work of Byron Katie and Havi Brooks useful for this.)
If you’re working with a group, rather than sellsellsell the benefits of your idea, how about working with them on the barriers they see, and exploring the truth or otherwise of those barriers.
Want to help a project move forward? Find out what’s getting in the way and work on removing the obstacles.
Do you team want to change but find they can’t? Same same.
Weakening the balancing loop might be the way to have the situation change.
Where might you apply this?
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