Sometimes, when you’re without a front row seat to the trials and toils of another’s success, it can be difficult to assess someone’s achievements accurately.  And as an active writer, photographer, filmmaker, and well, person, I am guilty of giving off the impression all these things come to me effortlessly.  However, I wasn’t always an active writer with a blog and a newsletter and a series of short-form pieces, just as I didn’t always have initiative to cultivate my own photographic aims.  I’ll be the first to tell you making a personal change takes a lot of legwork.  So how did I go from someone who kept my many failures private, was afraid to pump gas because I didn’t know how to, and sold myself short because of proocol misgivings to someone who has lived in multiple countries, accomplished a dozen life goals in as many months, and no longer fears international flight lengths, new dentists, or pumping gas?

Like everything else, one baby step at a time.

I’ve mentioned before my fondness for the Kaizen method of progress, a Japanese business model of constant improvement by breaking down a goal into smaller and smaller pieces, thus removing expectations, emotional bullshit, egos, and other such “barriers” to change.  Essentially you disarm the big scary lizard brain (your survival instinct that tells you everything except food, sleep, and sex is a waste of time) that keeps you from pursuing what needs pursuing.  An example of Kaizen method implementation: you want to start a regular exercise routine, but you can’t seem to find the motivation to go regularly.  So instead of forcing yourself to go to the gym every day after work, you make yourself put on your running shoes.  That’s it, until you build the habit.  It’s pretty nonthreatening, right?  Well, then, after you’re regularly in your trainers and no longer dreading what comes next, you drive to the gym.  Don’t go in, just drive there.  In your running shoes.  Three weeks or so and you’re at the gym in your running shoes every day, but you’ve gotten rid of whatever fearful or apathetic barrier that prevented you from establishing the routine you really wanted by dissolving the unrealistic expectations.  The Kaizen method suggests you go about every seemingly insurmountable goal in such a manner, by breaking down that one to-do item like “get in shape” into lots of smaller steps like “wear trainers” and “stand on treadmill” long before you worry about your cardio vs. lifting routine and how fast your mile is.

The reason I am so drawn to this method is that it isn’t just some crazy series of protocols and names for things that require software packages and a specific vocabulary.  Any change you try to implement in your life is a lot bigger deal than you think it is.  You aren’t just adding salt, substituting butter, or omitting pecans.  You’re cooking something you’ve never even eaten before.  The Kaizen method doesn’t expect you to know how it’s supposed to taste the first time, but instead gets you comfortable with the phases of change first before you try to implement anything at all.  For example, when you first train to become a long distance runner, you’re supposed to spend the first two months running less than a mile three days a week.  That’s it.  That is the olympic-recommended first three steps of the training regimen.  Less than you think, because it’s damn hard to begin with.

This is especially helpful for a habit you’ve tried to adopt or break multiple times.  Essentially you’re trying to change your response to something that’s been hardwired into you for however many years.  Instead of trying to change the outcome and then getting angry when it’s hard, the Kaizen method proposes you change the conditioned response before you even think about getting results.  It’s more positive than retributive.  You come at an issue sideways, and by creating new habits that are so micro they appear completely separate from your conditioned response, you slowly break apart your body and your brain’s insistence on the “old way.”  Most of all, the Kaizen method doesn’t try to separate the practice of developing efficiency or healthy habits from the emotional parts that make change hard.  I’m a huge fan of GTD principles, though one of my numerous complaints with the system is that it completely disregards those items in your folder or bucket or calendar that you aren’t doing because you aren’t ready to yet.  We spend a lot of time distracting ourselves from doing what we really want to do because we’re scared.  Maybe adopting an exercise routine doesn’t seem particularly difficult or scary to you, but trying to eliminate your subconscious fears is an exponentially bigger task, and that’s essentially what you’re doing.

As Martha Beck says in her book, Finding Your Own North Star, there are skills and there are metaskills.  In our previous Kaizen example, getting in shape is a skill, but the deeper skill we’re practicing is the ability to change.  Getting good at implementing change in your life is a metaskill that will serve you in other arenas as well. But no one helps you develop the metaskill, it’s something you always have to learn the hard way.  There are hundreds of sites, tips, ideologies, and systems out there to help you optimise your life into the most efficient model (the skill), but few actually cover what change is, or why it takes so long, or how difficult it can be (the metaskill).  After all the recent changes both conscious and chance encountered in my life (via Kaizen and via other methods alike), I’d like to think I have some pretty developed change muscles.  So I thought I’d share a little bit about how to help yourself with the meta part of whatever you’re currently trying to change in your own life, a little bit about the mental side of change that I’ve experienced and how to make the process easier, more effective, and a whole lot more rewarding.

PHASES OF CHANGE
Like any good story, change has a beginning, middle, and end, each with its own set of challenges and triumphs.  Unlike most programmes, the phases of change aren’t always chronological; we often go back and forth between the phases, or stay stuck in one for years at a time.  There’s no three-step solution, no tick marks you can check off, no tried and true how-to, just a couple stabs in the dark sea of unknown and a few mental tricks to help keep your head in the game.

1. Assure yourself
You have to be dead sure you want to do this.  You also have to fully believe that you will try it, good or bad, fail or succeed.  The biggest challenge when you begin a change process is keeping the experience positive.  Negative thoughts, harsh criticism, and fears and feelings of failure can thwart change faster than a grandma at a high school house party.  You really have to fight against whatever it is that is resisting this change with everything you’ve got in order to keep the change you want to make and the emotions about making that change separate.  Remind yourself you don’t have to be an expert.  Some people cook an egg perfectly on their first try and some people don’t have to train for the MS150, but most of us make at least twenty terrible omelettes before we get it right and have to train for months to not collapse at mile 7 of a marathon.  Even more of us don’t respond well to the ironman, buckle down appraoch, so spend a long time babying your emotions and cutting yourself copious slack.  Constantly repeat the mantra, “doing anything is better than doing nothing.” Setting your alarm earlier is better than not even trying to get up earlier, even if you do snooze sixteen times.  Fiddling around on a guitar you don’t know how to play is monumentally more impressive than still just dreaming about learning the instrument.  Even thinking about putting on your running shoes is a HUGE step in the right direction, so give yourself just desserts when your brain is in the right mode.

2. Create winnable conditions
It’s essential to prepare the space for change.  At least to start, you need a high success rate, virtually no consequences of failure, and an inordinately humongous payoff to make you feel like you will ever be able to do it.  This eliminates situations that are doomed to incite judgement, reckless headfirst dives into the deep end, purely intrinsic rewards (”the accomplishment of having done it”), and other such party poopers until all you’re left dealing with is the step itself instead of who will laugh or complicated research about where to start first or fiscal investments in any venture.  You might have to change your expectations, what you consider a clear victory, or enlist in some professional help.  If you want to learn how to dance, maybe you enroll in an ultra-beginner’s class, and every time you go to class (your measurable, achievable marker of success) your reward is that you have a boatload of fun and buy yourself an ice cream or a new CD after or go window shopping for a dance outfit.  If you want to stop grinding your teeth at night, don’t wait until your jaw and dental problems subside for you to feel success.  Celebrate each time you remember to wear your mouth guard, or every time you catch yourself starting to grind.  Remember, mindbogglingly low hurdles, staggering chance of success, and insanely disproportionate payoff will keep you motivated when you’re at your nerviest.  Make it so you can win.

3. Make an offer you can’t refuse
Once you’re ready, and you’ve won the game a few times, get yourself into situations you can’t back out of.  This will desensitise you to the new.  It’s basic psychology; ring the bell, dog gets hungry, put your gym shoes on, you want to work out.  But how do you keep up the good work without the bell?  Now that you’ve assured your nagging ego into submission, you’ve made the forecast favourable, and you’re reveling in your successes, you still need a little push, a little danger and risk in a new situation to make the new change stick.  Of course that means you’re also putting your progress at risk, and opening the possibility of failure again.  That’s okay, because you’re going to employ another watchdog to ensure you do it, consequences be damned, and win anyway.   Be the mob boss to your timid newborn habit.  For some people, a sizable serving of guilt will keep them from falling back on old habits like smoking or not recycling.  For others a dose of competition sparks their motivation.  I know two workout buddies who used to compete for the “badass of the week” award.  A surprising number of mates of mine have lied to ladyfriends to impress them with outrageous claims like “I know how to breakdance!” or “I’m great at public speaking!” and have then had to learn.  You could make a promise to your family, or have a friend mail a sizable check you made out to charity should you fail to reach your goal.  I personally use a fair amount of performance anxiety to my advantage and put myself in the public eye as a way to force myself to move forward.  I’d certainly let myself down on a deal, but I wouldn’t dream of remaining stagnant, underdeveloped, or boring when others are watching.  You’re a wily fox who knows all your buttons, so, within reason, push a few of ‘em to help you take that step.  And before you know it, you just might take that first step into the gym, running trainers on and all.