Achieve lasting change - conquer your immunity to change

A few years ago I read a super interesting book by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey about deliberately developmental organisations. As an HR professional, I've found a lot of inspiration in the book. I've become curious of other researches and theories developed by the authors and that is how I came across the book 'Immunity to change' (Kegan & Lahey, 2009). I hope it gives you an interesting new perspective on how you can achieve long lasting positive change in your life - just as it did to me when I read it.

What is change

In psychology, change refers to the process of becoming different over time. It involves a transformation in thoughts, behaviors, emotions, or circumstances that can occur within an individual. Change can be intentional or unintentional. (American Psychological Association, n.d.)

Introverts and change

Just like on many psychological aspects, our trait of introversion can greatly impact how we approach change and how successful we are in it. On one hand we may have a tendency to resist to take action and overthinking which may result is prolonging our change initiatives. On contrary, us introverts can show more resilience and our ability to carefully prepare can increase the success rate when trying to change (Cain, 2013). We'll dive further into in how introverts deal with change in a later blog post. First, let's understand the surface-level and deeper mechanisms of change.

Change on the surface

Change on the surface may seem easy. Easy because it seems to be just about having to make a conscious choice. Just demonstrating the new behavior for long enough and you're done. For example to get up half an hour earlier and go to the gym. Seems super easy. You just set your alarm 30 minutes earlier, get out of bed, get into your work out gear and go to the gym. Repeat it for 28 days and your behavior is changed: there's the new and improved you. But it's not that simple.

Change on a deeper level

Changing in fact is damn hard. It is hard because, just like our body's immune system protects us from harm, the mind develops an 'immune system' to avoid fear, anxiety, emotional discomfort or failure. That's in principle not a bad thing, but guess what? Change comes with a feeling of discomfort, fear, anxiety and uncertainty. When we are trying to build a new habit, our 'emotional immune system' is triggered and unconsciously working against the change. This immunity stems from deeply held, conflicting commitments and assumptions that work against the changes we want to make. The authors use the metaphor "pressing the gas and brake at the same time" to describe this inner conflict of wanting the change but in fact working against it.

How to approach change then?

The authors offer a 4 step process to uncover what supports and what stands in our way to embrace the change. Firstly, we need to be clear on what it is that we are doing and not doing to reach it. Then we dig deeper into our fears of making the change. Finally, we come to realize our underlying beliefs that drive our counterproductive behaviour. This is what needs to change in order to achieve our goal.

Staying with the getting up early and going to the gym example: perhaps I did do that for a few days, but then I was watching TV late and I'm tired the next morning, or decided to skip gym because of the snow during the night… Diving deeper, perhaps it is the fear of the uncomfortableness in my body, or the judgement from my family assuming that I will reach no results that forces me to push the break pedal. Very deep, it is my fear of failure that keeps me from fully engaging to shape my body.

Key message and application in practice

On contrary to the belief that change is about consistently building a habit, what this theory highlights is that there's so much more underlying than just doing something as of today differently. In order to reach a lasting positive change, we need to dig deep and understand our beliefs and fears that may resist the initiative. You can find a really nice summary and worksheet here to assess your own behaviours and beliefs in relation to your goal. The January journaling prompt will also guide you through how you can use this knowledge to achieve long-lasting positive changes in your life.

References:

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Change. In APA Dictionary of Psychology. Retrieved from https://dictionary.apa.org

Cain, S. (2013). Quiet : the Power of Introverts in a World That can’t Stop Talking. Broadway Books, An Imprint Of The Crown Publishing Group, A Division Of Random House, Cop.

Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2009). Immunity to change : how to overcome it and unlock potential in yourself and your organization. Harvard Business School, Cop.