Beyond motivation and will power: A new paradigm on creating change
My name is Tony Kirkland, MS. I have been a life coach and therapist for over 30 years.
On Sunday February 1, from 10:30 am- til noon,
I will be giving a talk at the Baltimore Ethical Society called: “The Technology of Change”. On Saturday February 21- from 8:30 am til 5:00 pm-
I, along with Dr. David O’Donague, a clinical psychologist, will be running a workshop called: “Leverage for Change: The Key to Change is Knowing What to Change”.
Here is a little overview of the concepts that will be presented:
A combination of Luck and hard work is often the way we explain why people succeed or fail. What if the reason had nothing to do with either, luck or hard work? Working harder or praying would not bring you any closer to your goal. Working smarter, for example, might be a better approach. Yet most of us operate under these basic assumptions. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know which actions created the best results and which are just a waste of time- or worse, which actions made the problem worse?
We all experience struggles and create what I call: a narrative. A narrative is a way of explaining our experiences. The problem with narratives is that most are completely wrong! They don’t explain reality at all. They focus on things that are either not important or untrue. i.e.: John says nobody loves me. The truth: John talks too much and people avoid him.
Beneath any narrative is often a much deeper explanation. What we experience is just the tip of the iceberg! The tip of an iceberg sits on top of a deeper foundation. As in our daily experience, we only see our behavior. What we don’t see are the causes of our behavior and therefore don’t understand the results we get. Be it global, or personal, it’s what we don’t see, that has the greatest influence on what happens.
Use is determined by design. If you’re using the subway system in New York, how you use it is determined by how it was designed. No matter how motivated, you can’t make the train go faster. Nor can you make it go where you want it to- it will not bend to your will. The underlying limits of the design will determine how you use it.
Equally, we each operate out of similar systems, both external and internal, that, like the subway system, which determine what we achieve- no matter how motivated or angry we get. We all have a system that generates, like clockwork, the results we get- over and over again! Most of the time this system is completely invisible- yet it determines our fate.
This is a different idea of change. We’re moved from an old paradigm: one focusing on motivation and will power, to design- designing better systems. The question becomes: How do we design an underlying, system that supports us: versus one that competes against us. Motivation and will power are completely inadequate methods to create sustainable change.
There is an alternative and it’s called Structural Alignment. In short, this means structuring a design that it built to support your highest aspirations. Most of us are constantly fighting systems and calling them “the limits or reality”. In my talk, I will introduce the design process. In the workshop I will teach you how to do it for yourself or for your organization.
I hope to see you there.
