In 1655 on the Indonesian island of Ternate, there were huge plumes of black smoke. If you had been there, you might have recognized its aroma. Cloves were being burned by the thousands by the Dutch East India Company. To maximize their profits, they destroyed all clove trees they didn’t control. This way they could maintain a monopoly on cloves that allowed them to keep supplies low and prices high.
But little did they know how precarious their monopoly would be
One tree on the island of Ternate named Afo had survived this wholesale destruction. And this tree would be their downfall. In 1770 a French man named Poivre stole some seedlings from the tree and those seedlings were taken to Zanzibar and other islands. On those islands, millions of the trees were grown, breaking the Dutch monopoly on Cloves.
As you can see, maintaining a monopoly can be quite precarious with just one factor leading to its demise
Making lasting changes to behavior can be just as precarious if we miss any of three important factors that can derail our efforts.
What we’re going to cover is:
1 – Forgetting
2 – Lack of skills
3 – Inner stuff
1 – Forgetting
She said “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just forgot to do my assignment all week.” I asked a few questions to see if forgetting is the issue or if there could be other causes.
“Did you remember at all during the week?” I asked.
“Yes, a couple of times when I was driving or speaking with a colleague.”
“What about other times?”
“No. I can’t believe it I dropped this.”
I was satisfied that she really did forget
So I asked her questions to find out what kinds of reminders would work best. In the end, we decided that she would put a daily alarm on her phone to remind her to do her daily assignment. That worked. The next time I spoke with her, she proudly showed me her writing.
In this case, she clearly had the skills required to take the action and just needed a system of reminders but what do you do when you don’t have the necessary skills?
2 – Lack of skills
When you don’t have the skills, you need to notice this and then go and get them. One client really struggled with putting off writing for her blog. Day after day she would intend to continue a blog post but couldn’t figure out what to say next. So I gave her the following assignment – do some prewriting techniques such as freewriting and mind mapping. After this she was able to figure out what she wanted to say and continue writing.
So when you don’t have the skills, it’s very important to identify the skill gap and then find a way to close it. But that’s not always going to work. There are times when something else gets in the way.
3 – Inner stuff
This is where unhooking skills come in. If we get hooked by a thought like “I can’t do it” then we unhook from that thought so we can move forward. Or we get hooked by fear of rejection then we unhook from that so we can take action with our fear.
One of the easiest ways to unhook from thoughts is to see thoughts as thoughts and not as reality
You can do that by adding the following phrase to thoughts that get in the way “I’m having the thought …” So if you think “I can’t do this” then you say “I’m having the thought I can’t do this.” This allows you to see the thought as a thought instead of as reality. You can then move forward and do what’s important to you.
But aren’t there external barriers to behavior change?
For example, what if my wife or husband doesn’t support my change or worse, actively works against it? This can certainly make things more tricky. If you are trying to lose weight and avoid sugar and your significant other keeps offering you chocolate cake, what do you do?
In this kind of situation, since forgetting is not an issue, you would look at skills and inner stuff
For skills, we might ask: How well are you communicating your wishes with your partner? Or is there something getting in his or her way of supporting you? For inner stuff, we might look at what feelings show up inside when you are offered that chocolate cake. How do you need to relate to them in order to say no? With these questions, you can discover ways to deal with those situations.
Summary
So we’ve covered three barriers to changing behavior and how to overcome them.
The first barrier is forgetting and the solution is strategic reminders.
The second is lack of skills and the solution is to create a plan to gain those skills.
And third, is inner stuff and the solution is to learn unhooking skills.
While the Dutch maintained their monopoly, cloves were extremely expensive.
That problem seemed just about impossible to solve until one man discovered one tree that changed everything. Some of the behaviors we want to change may seem impossible to solve as well until we discover specific factors holding us back and proven ways to overcome them.
Next step
Look at a behavior that you want to change. Then examine that behavior for the three factors that can get in the way.
-Forgetting
-Skills
-Inner stuff
Next, make a plan for how you would address all three factors. And finally, implement the plan.
