Psychologist Michelle Rozen calls it “The 6 per cent Club.”
She followed 1,000 people who started out one year in January wanting to make a big change in their life. She checked in every month until June. At that point, 94 per cent had dropped the ball.
So which club do you want to be a part of? The 6 per cent who are effective at changing aspects of their life or the 94 per cent who fail?
To succeed, she says you must understand you are fighting your brain. It fears the unknown. It only has so much energy to handle the many tasks and obligations you face each day. “When you’re thinking about doing anything new, you are forcing your brain to use more energy than it normally does. In other words, your brain hates new things,” she writes in The 6% Club.
So we come up with excuses for not completing – or even starting on – the changes we need to make. She recalls an early morning coffee at Starbucks years ago when she told a friend she hated her job and routine but couldn’t go back to school to change her life because her kids needed her and her husband was working at a startup and never home. The friend told her the kids would always need her and her husband would always be at a startup. Message: Jettison the excuses; change your life now.
She says change requires an accountability mindset to move beyond excuses. You need to take responsibility and make the changes, following her five-point plan:
- Identify your comfort zone: Change will require leaving your comfort zone, but first you must identify areas in your life that you cling to.
- Start small: Don’t challenge yourself on multiple fronts of your life all at once. It inevitably becomes overwhelming. Select one thing and even then, start small. “Once you pick a small way to change your ways and it works, you’ll do it again and again and get more and more ambitious in how you challenge yourself. But you have to build your way into it,” she says.
- Embrace change: Accept that in a changing world even your coziest comfort zone can’t last forever. Your mindset must embrace change.
- Recruit a support system: Focus on people in your life who believe in you. Share your goals with them. Step out of your comfort zone together, with them supporting you. Beware of people who are stuck in their own lives and want you to be the same.
- Learn from your mistakes: Everyone makes mistakes so don’t let that discourage you. “The world is divided between those who beat themselves up and become those mistakes and those who learn from their mistakes and move on,” she says.
Change requires focus. Throughout the day, quickly evaluate the options before you on a scale of zero to 10 to decide what to do. Making a healthy meal for your family may be a seven, but ordering takeout and spending half an hour in a crunch period playing with the kids might be a 10, so order in. The system quickly helps you to focus your time, energy and money and get goals done because they will be rated highly.
Set deadlines. Without them, she notes your brain may not take a goal seriously. Deadlines, when they are close, trigger a sense of urgency. That can translate into motivation. Deadlines can help you make progress toward your goal in a structured and efficient way.
She also urges you to adopt what she calls “The Mirroring Rule”: Whatever you want from other people has to start with you. You want them to care about you? Start caring about them. You want them to like you? Do you like them? Prioritize the relationships that will count in implementing the changes you seek and start supporting those individuals.
Join the 6 per cent Club.
Quick hits
- According to psychologist Anatol Rapoport, when criticizing or disagreeing with someone three prior steps are required. First, attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” Next, list any points of agreement, particularly those that aren’t matters of general or widespread agreement. Finally, mention anything you learned from your target. Now you may disagree.
- Helen Lee Kupp and Nichole Sterling, co-founders of Women Defining AI, which works to demystify artificial intelligence, urge you to try having AI ask you questions to unlock what you need to know rather than the reverse. In your prompt, explain your current challenge, goals and assumption and direct it to interview you, one question at a time, to sort out the issue.
- “The best returns come from your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems,” advises Ottawa thought leader Shane Parrish.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.