Why Some Change is Scary Part One
First let me say that people are not afraid of change. People change all the time. Human beings are wired to change. We’ve been changing for millions of years. And our capacity for adaptation is only accelerating. The impulse to evolve and the motivation to improve are wired into our brains and bodies. We are more naturally oriented to change than resist. When you study unsuccessful change efforts up close, one common pattern emerges:
- The more obvious, tangible, and relatively easy-to-address aspects of the change are tackled. So I want to change, I will focus on the aspects that I want to change. What will it cost me and what will my reward be for changing? How will I know that I have achieved change? What do I have to change in my life to be successful? Is it my thinking, my diet, my friends, my home, my personal beliefs?
- Once I have settled on what I need to change then I can start the process of deciding how I will make the changes.
All these elements are tangible, hard stuff, factual, and objective and so I start to work on these elements but if I don’t pay attention to the intangible aspects of change then I will fail in my attempt to change. The invisible, intangible, risky, and ultimately most powerful Aspects are ignored at my peril.
The intangible aspects of change are factors are:
Purpose
Values
Passion
Alignment
All these elements are intangible, emotional, and subjective. These intangible elements make or break change our change efforts. When we ignore them, they come back to bite us. This soft stuff has a real, hard and tangible impact on results. When people are passionate and committed to a result, they make it happen. When people are aligned around a common purpose, they move mountains.
