Here’s something that I noticed this last week: we were running a campaign and I connected with a lot of my old colleagues, my old peers, and we had conversations about business and a lot of them were not successful.
The conversation was really around, what do you do to push it to the next level? What was really interesting was that although a lot of them were majorly uncomfortable and majorly in denial about what was going on, it was really hard for them to say yes to making a big change. We are talking about the human dislike of change. It's kind of incredible when it’s clear the business is failing, they really need to get clients and money, and instead of looking at what's necessary to make that big change, the human intention is to keep things the same, let's not do anything different. Don't do anything is better than doing this new thing that's really scary because it's different.
So humans don't like change. That's a pretty much a proven fact. It has something to do with our egos trying to keep us safe because changing something could be super, super scary.
When you are looking at what's going on in your life and in your business that's not serving you and you find yourself not changing anything, honestly, what's not big enough is your pain. Your current situation is still more comfortable and it's still more workable for you than overcoming the fear to go into this new situation.
To make this first step to change, your pain has to be bigger than the resistance you have to this new situation. Think about where in your business this is going on right now because, I promise you, there are places where you know change is needed, where you know it's time to do something differently, but you know that it's going to require a lot of stuff you're not comfortable with. Really think about those things. Because what happens is once you realize that you have to step into this new behavior, then you really have to surrender. You have to surrender to doing things differently and it's kind of like building a new muscle. Most of us know when you decide to do something for exercise and you haven't done this before, you're going to hurt!
Now same thing if you step into a different behavior in your business. It's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to hurt, you're going to feel sore. You might feel a little bit beaten-up because things aren't working out quite the way that you had hoped for. But that's really how you have to approach it. It's sort of like turning a ship. When you turn a ship, it doesn't happen immediately. It takes a long time for the ship to make this motion that brings first the front around and then the whole thing.
So one of the biggest things around being successful with change is being coachable. So, again, this is the commitment to do things differently and then having a mentor, having a tribe where you can learn how to do this, but you have to keep saying yes to listening to new ideas and then implementing, of course. That's the biggest thing. That's the shifting from the mindset to the strategy. First, being coachable and then implementing and being very, very consistent with that.
I read this book this book by Alan Deutschman, Change Or Die. It was talking about the success rate of change and it's kind of crazy, humans are so resistant to change that even when their life depends on it, the success rate for change is only 10%. So think about this: you want to do something new and you're not supported, it's 90% likely that you are going to fail. Crazy stuff, right?
He’s talking about the anatomy of change. He cited a medical study where there was a whole group of people who had some crazy heart problems and their prognosis was if they were not going to change their habits, how they eat, how they exercise, how they relate, how they run their lives, they were 90% certain to die.
These people went through surgery and did all the medical stuff necessary and, yet, if they did not have a support system, if it was only the medical stuff they were doing, they were almost certain to die afterwards because only 10% of them would actually stick with the changes.
They took the experiment further and added support groups and accountability to it, and guess what? The success rate of this group, who was doing medically everything but added support, the success rate of this group went up to 78%...
So when you're in a group of people who are all committed to do the same thing, then you're relating. That brings the social connection piece in, which is incredibly important for humans. Having a way to relate. Then, you have to look at your current situation and rediscover it. You have to make it different. You have to reframe it. In this medical study, people had to eat differently, they had to exercise, they had to change their lifestyle habits. So you have to reframe your current situation to how you want it to be. Then, the really important thing about the next step is you have to rinse and repeat. You have to keep doing it over.
Summarizing, when you really want to stick with change, you have to relate. That means you have to be with other people who are going through the same thing. You have to rediscover and reframe. Look at your current situation and be very focused on how you want it to be. Then, rinse and repeat.
When you're looking at what you want to change, you want to make sure you have a structure around it because what happens when you're even implementing a small change is, you just get stuck in your old habits. Something that I call habit gravity. All your old habits are pulling on you, kind of like a ball and chain. The second you try to do something differently, your mind goes back to, “oh, it was so much easier before. Oh, I'd much rather not do this.” This is the subconscious self-talk that goes on over and over, which keeps you or gets you back into your old habits. Pay attention to that, when you're doing something new and then, you're gung-ho the first week, and then, after a couple of weeks, you do it only sometimes, and then quickly it's all forgotten.
There are three things that really help you make significant changes. First one is you have to work with the mindset. As always, the mindset is the most important thing. You have to get really, really committed. Whatever you need to do to keep your commitment level up, remind yourself of how it was before, make really sure that you know your pain points. Depending on if your motivation is going toward something or shrinking away from something, so pain or pleasure, what is this thing that you need to believe in so you keep going forward with this new behavior?
Then, of course, you have to be ready for it, too. That's the overcoming of the resistance. The next thing is you have to have a structure for it. You have to be sure that you can build a container where you have the strategies so you can consistently stay with your new structure, where you can use your new behaviors. Then, you have to have a way of being accountable. Again, going back to the old study, if you don't have a group of people or if you don't have anybody who will help you through this, you're most likely going to stop doing this new thing.
Mindset, structure, and behavior are the three things. So the behavior piece is really around making sure that you know what you're changing and being aware of what you're doing all day long. Sometimes, what really helps is building checkpoints for yourself.
Understand and expect that when you're making a big change, it won't go perfectly. There are going to be times when you mess up. There are going to be times when you slip back into your old stuff.
Say you're at Point A and you want to go to Point B. In our minds, in our hearts, what we want to have is a straight line between those two points. We want to believe that it's going to go just smoothly with no problems. But the reality is here's your Point A and then it's going to be a crazy jumbled line to get to Point B. You just have to expect that and play with it. Be welcoming of all the challenges on your way because the reality is once you leave Point A, you can't go back to how things were. Once you decide to make a change, your subconscious, your body, your self, your soul, all of you knows that this is not where you want to be anymore, so you actually really can't go back to Point A. It's not available. You're a changed person the second you commit to making a change.
So you might as well go to Point B because that's where you are headed. For those of you who are into formulas and equations, here's the change equation:
Change = Dissatisfaction Of Status Quo + Vision + Clarity Of First Steps > Perceived Cost Of Change
The dissatisfaction with your current situation plus the vision of where you're going, plus the clarity of your first steps, those have to be greater than your perceived cost of change.
When you're looking at something big and you're really afraid to do it and you feel like you have a ton of resistance going on, well, that's the natural behavior because the more important something is, the more resistance you're going to have.
I have a few little steps that I'd like you guys to try. First of all, think about what's currently not working in your business? What have you been struggling with? What's been going on over and over that you have just kind of accepted, but you know it's not serving you at all? Then, what do you want it to change to? What's the reality that you are actually wanting to step into? What has you stuck right now? What are the blocks? What's the stuff that's standing in your way of actually getting to this thing? You want to keep a close eye on those blocks.
Then, the last thing, is what are your habits? What's the stuff that keeps pulling you back every time you're changing something?
So what's currently not working? What needs to change? What do you want to change it to? What are your blocks? What are your bad behaviors that you're always using?
Try that out. Spend this next week or two really observing, noticing where you're getting in your way of changing or committing to change, where you know it's not serving you.
This is just the beginning too. I don't really love giving you guys just a band-aid. So if you want to learn more and want to have that connection piece, visit us in our Facebook group, The Art of Scaling to Seven Figures. If you want even more help than that, you can go to SevenFigureCEO.com/apply, and you can apply for a strategy session with me.