Keeping a journal is a great resource. It’s amazing what you can find when you look back. In the course of reviewing past sessions with various guys upstairs, I found their advice from last September, in which they calmly told me that we could get rid of old unwanted habits and responses pretty quickly and easily. Great, ground-breaking stuff — and no doubt as old as the hills, too. But anything is new when you hear it for the first time. This, from Sept. 17, 2010
… So any half-forgotten or even never-conscious robots we have might be enough to prevent an effective consensus to change the rules. How do we get all the robots? Put out an APB?
Why not? That’s exactly what you do want. Only, maybe a staff meeting. Lay out the situation, say that you propose to change the rules, ask who will be affected, hear any objections or problems, work out problems and leave with everyone on board.
Very interesting approach. It may even work.
Of course it will work. There isn’t any magic in any of this — except maybe in the results. There isn’t any one preferred format. Just accomplish a few stated things:
- Identify what you want to be rid of, or what you want to acquire.
- Get rooted in the feeling associated with the old pattern, so it isn’t just words.
- Find out what you can about where the patterns came from, what the payoff is.
- Update people’s files. Bring all aspects into a shared present-time mental space.
- Reiterate your clear intent and check to see who drag their heels.
- Address those problems, embracing the element itself.
- Go forth changed and see what surfaces next.
It isn’t complicated, unless you make it complicated.
I like the idea that maybe we don’t even need to know every element that entered into the old situation, but can cover the situation in a blanket matter.
Hey, we’re practical, here. You’ve heard and used the statement, “the best is the enemy of the good,” and “a thing worth doing is worth doing badly,” and “good enough for government work.” They are all saying the same thing: Good enough is good enough, and seeking for perfection may not only not be worth it, but may prevent real progress.
Well, I and my other friends thank you.
You thank us best when you apply what you know and whatever you have recently, theoretically, learned. That means we are not wasting our time.
While you are spewing adages, let us not forget that “timing is everything!”
Thank you for lifting this piece to the surface again. There will likely be others for whom this is not entirely new, but will also benefit from hearing it “for the first time” from the perspective we hold NOW.
Yep. This is the first day of something-or-other! 🙂