Summary: Willingness and ability to change oneself are vital skills. By change I mean changing habits and acquiring new skills, not just acquiring knowledge. I realized that in my case the process of conscious change (or personal development) is usually sequential.
This post is about my experience with change, and a theory of change I came up with recently to describe it. While experience is hard to question, the theory is merely a proposition. I leave it up to you to relate it to your own experience and observation. I never bothered to verify it, though at this point I think it is quite an accurate description.
By change I don't just mean learning. Learning can be interpreted as acquiring knowledge, which for me is easy and definitely not enough to reach the end goal. End goal is usually increased happiness or improved effectiveness. Knowledge doesn't make people happier or more effective. Change does: new behaviors, better handling of emotions, more productive mindsets.
In this article, change is synonymous with removing bad habits, establishing good habits, and learning new skills.
I have become a bit of a personal-development freak over the past five years. Initially I focused on productivity at work. Over time personal growth in all areas of life became highest priority for me. I was unhappy a few years back, and I realized I really needed to change something. It took several years to see the effects, but I have almost revolutionized my emotional life, improved general attitude towards other people and established a few good habits. It took hundreds of hours of hard work, reading, talking to people, psychotherapy, exposure to risk, experiencing failure. It was worth it though.
I now believe that willingness & ability to change are vital skills, especially for young people. There are two reasons. First, such broad exploration is a good way to discover what we like the most. It is necessary to maximize our happiness. Second, it decreases the risk of falling behind others when the world around us changes - if we learn how to adapt quickly, we will be able to respond to potentially dangerous market shifts or social revolutions. It is beneficial for an individual to try many ways of living, many kinds of work, and many kinds of relationships in order to practice adaptation and learn more about one's own preferences.
I treat all contexts of change equally: it could be personal or work life, a small detail like daily routine or complex issues like the way we deal with stress.
Sometimes change occurs "automatically", without conscious effort on our part. For example, we change what we do when we move to live in a new place: new people, new job, new market conditions. You could call it "forced adaptation". I don't care about that. By definition, it happens to us once in a while. What I am concerned with is conscious act of changing how we live when we are not forced to change. A process in which we recognize we want to do something differently, and we find a way to actually do it.
In my case conscious change follows the following "model":
- Step 1. Realize there's something you can improve: a skill to learn; a bad habit to break; a recurring problem to solve
- Step 2. Have the motivation to change: recognize it's important to change and some urgency of this need
- Step 3. Learn how to change: what does the new behavior look like, research the topic, learn from others
- Step 4. Actually make the change: change a habit; learn & practice a skill
I do not mean to suggest that this model applies to everyone. Interestingly, I have found two papers (paper one, paper two) mentioning nearly identical model established by some psychologists in the 1980s. I haven't read the original papers yet, but it was fun to see that I came up with the same thought framework just by reflecting on my own experience!
It can take a lot of time to go through it all. Each step has its own challenges. Most importantly, there is a lot that needs to happen before actual change: I need to be aware of the opportunity to change, have the motivation, and know how to change. The model may sound trivial, but if I fail to go through steps 1-3 *explicitly* in my head, I usually don't succeed in making long-term change. Going all the way through requires admitting that I am not perfect, motivating myself, and perseverance to do the hard work.
Step 1 is usually triggered by challenges, suffering, reading, feedback from others or observing them in action.
Step 2 is mostly about deciding whether or not I want to change now. Without conscious decision to change, most efforts fail.
Step 3 is targeted research. I observe others, read books or the Internet, use formal training, sometimes come up with my own solutions or ideas. It is all about "How do I do it?" Sometimes it is as trivial as never lighting a cigarette again. Other times it is a long project involving buying books, talking to others, gathering more feedback on my behavior and coming up with tricks that will make change easier.
Step 4 is taking the effort to do things differently: stopping the bad habit, starting a new habit, learning and practicing a new skill.
Establishing habits is different than acquiring skills in that habits require perseverance, whereas skills are more about mastery. I will probably write more about habits, since it is a fascinating topic, and a great life challenge for most people to change them.
