A client of mine asked a question a few days ago, after a few
hours of our second requirements gathering session, “what is your success rate,
I mean do you have sure fire way to change human beings..”. This client was
expressing a feeling most have when it comes to investing in themselves or
their staff. “Will I really change?”, “Can old dogs learn new tricks?” others
might ask. You at the bottom of these questions are long held beliefs that it
is difficult to quantify investments in training, especially in programs or
processes that involve change in human behavior.But the good news is that old Dogs can learn new tricks and
it takes about 28 days to begin to see evidence that adults have learning new
behaviors.
The process as Samuel Smiles reminds is in forming new ways of doing things and overcoming the old ways that maybe working against us. The quotation now made famous by the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People program, Samuel Smiles says the following:
“Sow a thought, reap an Action
Sow an Action, reap a Habit
Sow a Habit, reap a Character
Sow a Character, reap a Destiny”
The process of changing your behavior begins in your thought; it begins in your head. Charles Duhigg in his New Times bestseller, noted that the process for habit formation is a three-step loop. First there is cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is the reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Overtime this loop becomes more and more automatic and a habit is born. By same token Charles Duhigg reminds us, we learn to create new neurological routines that overpower those behaviors – if we take control of the habit loop-we can force bad tendencies unto the background. And begin create new tendencies, patterns and form new positive behaviors.
So to the question posed by my client earlier, the answer, is yes adults can decide to change and through practice form powerful positive habits. But doing this requires that we understand the power we have to create outcomes in life and not surrender to circumstances. John Maxwell wrote that “When we surrender to our circumstances we have good days and bad days. We are at the mercy of what happens to us. When we surrender to a cause or purpose, we have good days wherever we go: the purpose never dies”. And how do we begin to change our behavior? How do we take concrete steps to change?. I go back to another client who indicated that exercise of identifying all his roles in life and deliberately creating a personal mission statement to serve as a powerful guide to living out his purpose in life was a great help.
As a matter of fact, the process begins with a firm realization by people to take charge of the remote control of their lives – your life is the most important project there is and you can delegate the project management responsibility to somebody else. What kind of life one lives is directly correlated to the choices one makes. So before you start blaming your ethnic origin, geographic location of your birth or who you are married to, remember that you have that remote control of life in your hands. You can decide today to begin to make meaningful choices or spend most of the day watching Nigerian movies on Africa Magic or watching your favorite premiership soccer side. It is up to you. And there are people who are deciding to live meaningful lives regardless of their objective conditions.
Take the youth from Paraguay who are made musical instruments from Landfills around their homes and joined a project to form what is today a global sensation called the Landfill Harmonic. Or Uganda’s own queen of Katwe, a 14 year old who got out of poverty by learning to play Chess in local community program. Today Fiona Mutesi has won at least two international Chess championships, a book titled the Queen of Katwe is out about Fiona and a full length movie from Disney is on the way.
The process as Samuel Smiles reminds is in forming new ways of doing things and overcoming the old ways that maybe working against us. The quotation now made famous by the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People program, Samuel Smiles says the following:
“Sow a thought, reap an Action
Sow an Action, reap a Habit
Sow a Habit, reap a Character
Sow a Character, reap a Destiny”
The process of changing your behavior begins in your thought; it begins in your head. Charles Duhigg in his New Times bestseller, noted that the process for habit formation is a three-step loop. First there is cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is the reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Overtime this loop becomes more and more automatic and a habit is born. By same token Charles Duhigg reminds us, we learn to create new neurological routines that overpower those behaviors – if we take control of the habit loop-we can force bad tendencies unto the background. And begin create new tendencies, patterns and form new positive behaviors.
So to the question posed by my client earlier, the answer, is yes adults can decide to change and through practice form powerful positive habits. But doing this requires that we understand the power we have to create outcomes in life and not surrender to circumstances. John Maxwell wrote that “When we surrender to our circumstances we have good days and bad days. We are at the mercy of what happens to us. When we surrender to a cause or purpose, we have good days wherever we go: the purpose never dies”. And how do we begin to change our behavior? How do we take concrete steps to change?. I go back to another client who indicated that exercise of identifying all his roles in life and deliberately creating a personal mission statement to serve as a powerful guide to living out his purpose in life was a great help.
As a matter of fact, the process begins with a firm realization by people to take charge of the remote control of their lives – your life is the most important project there is and you can delegate the project management responsibility to somebody else. What kind of life one lives is directly correlated to the choices one makes. So before you start blaming your ethnic origin, geographic location of your birth or who you are married to, remember that you have that remote control of life in your hands. You can decide today to begin to make meaningful choices or spend most of the day watching Nigerian movies on Africa Magic or watching your favorite premiership soccer side. It is up to you. And there are people who are deciding to live meaningful lives regardless of their objective conditions.
Take the youth from Paraguay who are made musical instruments from Landfills around their homes and joined a project to form what is today a global sensation called the Landfill Harmonic. Or Uganda’s own queen of Katwe, a 14 year old who got out of poverty by learning to play Chess in local community program. Today Fiona Mutesi has won at least two international Chess championships, a book titled the Queen of Katwe is out about Fiona and a full length movie from Disney is on the way.
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