Change Is The Easy Part. Then Comes Life

 “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”

title of a song by Carole King

Carole King’s plaintive question is really one that might be asked by anyone who is uncertain about how long love will last. Similarly, anyone who wants to maintain weight loss, stop smoking forever, quit drinking permanently or exercise regularly might also be wondering if they can sustain their commitment.

It’s a question participants in my seminars are continually confronted with. Will the change they’ve made in the classroom be the change they sustain at home and at work?

It’s a question that anyone might ask about any situation where they have taken on some new behavior and wonder if they’ll be able to sustain that new behavior tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

A drug addict framed this dilemma succinctly. Well, actually, a drug addict on television.

I was watching reruns of a show called “The Wire.” The first season (which is all I’ve seen) is about cops chasing drug dealers.

In one scene, a drug addict who attended his first Narcotics Anonymous meeting later runs into a man who spoke at the meeting and who had been off drugs for 3 months. The addict mentions how hard it is to stay off drugs and the man responds, “Getting clean is the easy part. Then comes life.”

Exactly. When we first change our behavior, we receive lots of accolades. Anyone who has ever lost weight, stopped smoking or given up drinking knows what I mean.

Then comes life where, day after day, that new behavior has to be sustained. Life is what happens after the applause goes away.

When I coach people in seminars to listen rather than command, I notice that they become really good listeners in the classroom where I and the other participants cheer them on.

Then comes life in which they have to listen to family and friends at home and team members at work who may have very different points of view. 

So how can any of us be sure we’ll sustain the change we’ve committed to after the applause dies down?

Here are 4 steps that will make a difference:

1.   Practice integrity. A key reason you may not sustain change is that you don’t trust yourself to do so. Perhaps you’ve tried to change in the past, failed to sustain the change and now you’re afraid you’ll fail again. You have to learn that you can trust yourself to be bigger than your circumstances when life intrudes. The more you honor your word in the present the more you will trust that you can do so in the future. Practice doing what you said you’d do whether you feel like it or not. Be on time for appointments. Make that phone call when you said you would. If you promised you’d be somewhere, be there when you said you would.

1.   Declare publicly (to at least three people) the change you are committing to. The signers of the Declaration of Independence mutually pledged to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” The signers knew that pledging their “sacred Honor” to each other would strengthen their commitment to independence.

Pledge your independence from your previous behavior to at least three people. If these are people who are committed to the same change as you, all the better. 

2.   Ask at least one of the people to whom you made your “declaration of independence” to hold you accountable for your new behavior until it is a habit. That’s the “secret” behind Weight Watchers, any 12-step program and, indeed, any behavior change. Select someone who won’t give up when you get angry at them for holding you accountable (it’s likely you will get angry. Few people like to be held accountable). 

3.   Be willing to tolerate the discomfort of change. Write your name with your non-dominant hand. Notice your discomfort and notice how quickly you want to go back to using your dominant hand. Is it any wonder that, no matter what the change, we want to return to the old, comfortable way of doing things as soon as possible?

You may wonder how long the discomfort will last. There’s no way to know. How long did it take before you could walk without falling down? Imagine the consequences of deciding that walking was too uncomfortable so you might as well give it up.

Now imagine how great you’ll feel when life intrudes and you sustain the change in spite of your circumstances.

The “secret” to sustaining change when the applause dies down and life intrudes is no secret at all: Sustaining change requires disciplined practice of the new behavior and, above all, the integrity to keep your word about what you promised to do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Resolving Conflict Is No Fairy Tale

Imagine John is in a relationship with Mary and John thinks she is quite contrary about how her garden grows. She wants silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row. John knows that gardens contain carrots and tomatoes.

In reality, as in every conflict, John and Mary simply have different points of view and points of view are always open to change (want proof? Move two feet to the right of where you’re currently located and you’ll have a different point of view).

But, as in every conflict that lasts more than a few minutes, one person (we’ll focus on John although it could be Mary) is certain he has the truth, not simply a point of view (in a conflict, thinking you have the truth won’t set you free. It will cause the other person to dig in her heels).

To confirm that he has the truth, John gossips about Mary with his neighbor and, because John is a credible source, she agrees that Mary is contrary.

A brief digression: What we call “the truth” is, in many instances, just a belief we’ve accepted because we’ve trusted the source we got it from. When enough people agree with the source, we call that “the truth.”

For example, few people believed that John Edwards was having an affair when the National Enquirer broke the story. But when the New York Times confirmed it, it became a “fact” because the New York Times is, for most people, a credible source. Depending on the credibility we attach to our sources, we do/do not believe in global warming, do/do not believe in evolution and do/do not believe that Elvis is really dead.

This is why gossip can be destructive. If the gossiper is credible to the people hearing the gossip, the gossip becomes the truth whether it is or not and could be harmful to the person being gossiped about.

Now back to our story: John tells Mary he knows he’s right because his neighbor agrees with him and, as “everyone” knows, because it’s “the truth,” gardens do not contain silver bells and cockle shells.

Both John and Mary can get what they want. How about a garden of carrots and a garden of silver bells? How about a row of tomatoes and a row of cockle shells? But, if John is certain he has the truth, which he is sure he does, he will never see these options.

Perhaps, John thinks, it’s not worth the hassle of being in a relationship with Mary. Perhaps they should break up. John certainly can’t be friends with Mary because, if Mary really cared about him, Mary wouldn’t be so contrary. How could John have been so wrong to think Mary might be someone to spend the rest of his life with?   

Far fetched? Change Mary and her garden to anyone you think is difficult to get along with: Joe in the next cubicle, your boss in the next office, a relative or friend you’re no longer speaking to or any relationship where you’re sure you have “the truth.”

Outside the world of fairy tales, people aren’t being contrary. They simply have desires that conflict with ours. We can get our desires fulfilled if we will:

1.   Talk to one another not about one another,

2.   Know that what we call “the truth” is a point of view,

3.   Be open to different points of view and

4.   Seek solutions that take into account our desires and theirs. The word “but” perpetuates the conflict. The word “and” offers the possibility of win-win solutions.

An Inspiring Story of Resiliency and Forgiveness

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else—you are the one who gets burned.”

                                                   attributed to Buddha

Want a template for resiliency and forgiveness? Or perhaps you could use a shot of inspiration. If so, I urge you to read the book “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand whose previous book was “Seabiscuit.”

“Unbroken” tells the story of Louis Zamperini who,in the 1930s, was a track star in high school in Torrance, California as well as in college at the University of Southern California.  Some thought he would be the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes.  Zamperini ran the 5,000 meters (a little over three miles) in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. 

In 1942, Zamperini volunteered for the Army Air Force. He was a bombadier and survived a horrific air battle over the Japanese held island of Nauru. 

Several weeks later, he and an 11-member crew crashed in the Pacific while searching for the crew of a downed flight. Three men survived the crash.

The men floated on a raft in the Pacific for 47 days. They subsisted on scarce rainwater, the occasional bird that landed on their raft and the livers from two sharks that they killed using only a pliers (take that “Jaws”).

One of the men, Francis McNamara, died after 37 days. Louis and the other survivor, Russell Phillips who had been the pilot on the doomed flight, floated 2,000 miles to the Japanese controlled Marshall Islands where they were captured and imprisoned.

Survival at sea is only the first part of this harrowing story. For the next two years, Louis and the other prisoners of war were beaten, tortured and starved. Because no one had heard from him in all this time, Louis was declared dead by the war department.

His ordeal as a prisoner of war ended when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrendered.

Louis returned home, married and had two children. But his rage at his Japanese captors and, especially, a camp commander named Watanabe, produced horrific nightmares and alcoholism.

At the urging of his wife, Louis attended a revival meeting in Los Angeles led by the young Billy Graham. Remembering a pledge he had made while on the raft at sea to give his life to God if he survived, Louis literally ended his drinking that night and dedicated his life to helping others. His nightmares and his rage never returned.

Perhaps the most amazing scene of all is of Louis returning to the prisoner of war camp in Japan where he had been imprisoned and that now imprisoned the very guards that had tormented him. To their astonishment Louis forgave the guards and even tried to meet with Watanabe to forgive him although Watanabe refused the meeting.

Louis is still alive and is 95 years old.

I encourage you to make a list of the people in your life who have “wronged” you, the people in your life you just “can’t” forgive and the people in your life who you complain about. Let go of your “hot coals” and forgive these people. You may not condone what they did, but I urge you to forgive them. Not for their sake, but for yours.

Want A Great Relationship? Listen Like A Dog

I recently saw a show on PBS as part of their “Independent Lens” series called “We Were There” about the AIDS epidemic especially as it was experienced in San Francisco from 1970 to about 1990.

When the show was over, I called two gay friends to tell them that the show gave me a new, visceral understanding of what they had gone through. Each friend told me he had personally known (either as close friends or acquaintances) over 100 (or more) people who had died during the epidemic.

But my new understanding was still an outsiders understanding. I will never know personally the terror that the epidemic engendered among those who had AIDS and those who were in danger of contracting the disease (which, for awhile, seemed it could be anyone, gay or straight). 

By definition, I have an outsiders understanding of everything that is outside me (practically the entire world) and don’t even always understand what seems to come from inside me. I don’t think I’m alone in this although I don’t know because, as I wrote, you are all outside of me.

The only way I can get even an inkling of what life is like for another is by asking, “What’s life like for you?” and then listening to understand the answer without opinions or judgments.

Which reminds me of a great book called “The Art of Racing In The Rain.” The narrator is a dog named Enzo and, yes, it ends like many (most?) books about dogs (a dead dog in case you’re wondering) although this book ends with a moving twist on that theme.

Enzo’s quest is to become human (a step down on the evolutionary scale?). Enzo reveals why he knows he’d be a good person: “Because I listen. I cannot talk, so I listen very well. I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own.”

I had an imaginary dog when I was a child and I loved him. Like the four real dogs that have lived with me, he seemed to never judge me, never interrupt me and he never interjected his own opinions.

We get to experience perfect love with our animals, not because they love us (take away the food and who knows if they’d remain) but because we love them unconditionally which allows us to experience unconditional love.

We could extend this lesson to all of life: if we want to experience peace, be peaceful. If we want to avoid conflict, don’t argue. If we want to find perfect love be perfectly loving.

It’s so easy with an animal. Could it be that easy with a person? Perhaps we can follow the advice given in the Tao Te Ching: “If you keep your mind from judging, your heart will find peace.”

 Which kind of brings me back to “We Were There.”

Restore Integrity to Restore A Relationship

Have you seen the movie, “It’s Complicated?”

Meryl Streep is divorced from Alec Baldwin, the father of their three children. At the college graduation of one of their children, she begins an affair with her former husband with consequences that give the movie its title.

In reality, however, it’s not complicated at all. It only gets complicated because Streep and Baldwin’s characters don’t keep their agreements. They didn’t keep their agreement when they got married (they missed the “until death do you part” thing), they didn’t keep their agreement when they got divorced (their relationship as a couple is over) and they didn’t keep their agreement to remain divorced when they began their affair.

I suggest that people say “It’s complicated” to justify why they aren’t going to keep their agreements. Keeping agreements is not complicated. It’s the breaking of agreements that creates complications.

If you have relationships that aren’t as great as you would like them to be, the source is likely broken agreements. You don’t trust someone who is consistently late or cancels appointments or fails to meet a promised deadline or fails to love, honor and cherish you even though that was the promise.

By the way, it’s not a matter of morality. You’re not a good person if you keep agreements and a bad one if you don’t. Keeping agreements is simply what works. It creates trust and safety that will allow the relationship to move forward.

I’m also not advocating staying in relationships that don’t work just because you made an agreement to do so. Having an agreement to end a relationship may be as beneficial as an agreement to stay together.

I am suggesting that whenever you’re in a conflict and someone maintains that the explanation for why they behaved in a particular way is “complicated,” that person either has already broken an agreement or is about to.

If you break an agreement, restore integrity to the relationship to restore the relationship. Apologize. Make a new promise that you will honor the agreement and stick to it. Or request a renegotiation of the agreement.

If someone breaks an agreement with you, confront it as soon as you find out. The longer you wait, the more you give tacit approval to the broken agreement.

Here’s a possible sequence for doing so:

1.   1. Say, “I want to talk to you about something that’s bothering me. Is this a good time for you?” You’re getting permission to proceed to ensure that the person is ready to listen to you.

2.   2. “We had an agreement to do X and you instead you did Y.” Say what the person said or did not your opinion or judgment. For example, don’t explain why it’s important to you for the person to have kept the agreement. The more you explain, the more opening you give the other person to discuss your explanation versus the fact of the broken agreement.

3.   3. The other person will likely rationalize, justify and /or explain the reasons for why he/she broke the agreement. Listen with respect, paraphrase what he/she says, but don’t lose sight of the necessity to get a clear agreement for the future. Without adding your own comments, keep asking, “Is there anything else you want to say” until the person is done.

4.   4. Ask if the person “will” keep the agreement in the future. “Will” is the operative word. Change is an act of will. You want to find out if the person has the “will power” to keep agreements in the future. Don’t ask, “Could you? ” Might you?” or “Will you try?”

5.   5. There are only three possible responses to the “Will you” question: “Yes” in which case thank the person, “No” in which case realize that the agreement no longer exists and you may choose to renegotiate or end the relationship or some form of “Maybe” which calls for the conflict resolution strategies I outline in my book, “Everyone Wins! Playing The Game of Conflict Resolution In All Your Relationships.”

Remember: Keeping agreements is not complicated although some people will try to make you believe that it is.

Make A Real Difference Today. Ask For Help

“People are happy helping. It’s never hard to find help. It is only hard to know that it’s time to ask.”

Maurice Sendak,  Brundibar

As one who is reluctant to ask for help, Sendak’s quote struck home.

If you have children, you probably know who Maurice Sendak is. If you pay attention to the news, you probably know that Maurice Sendak died at the age of 83 on May 8^th. Sendak was a children’s author. Perhaps his best known book was “Where The Wild Things Are.”

I didn’t realize what an amazing man he was until I heard Fresh Air on NPR with Terry Gross on May 8th. Terry replayed four interviews she had done with Sendak over the years.

Brundibar” (2003), with text by the playwright Tony Kushner, is based on an opera performed by the children of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The opera, also called “Brundibar,” had been composed in 1938 by Hans Krasa, a Czech Jew who later died in Auschwitz.

Now back to the quote I used at the beginning.

Many people, myself included, grew up with the myth of the rugged individualist who carved a path through the western wilderness all by himself. Think Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Imagine any western movie (“High Noon” is one of the better examples) where the hero, abandoned by the town, stares down the bad guy in a gun fight to the death.

Of course, those lone heroes are all anomalies. In the West in particular cooperation and helping one another were a necessity for survival. Living far from civilization required depending on one’s fellow human beings for help. This is true today as it was then. The next time you’re in an airplane going west at night, notice how few and far between are the lights between cities west of the Mississippi versus the fairly constant light show seen from the sky in the East.

But believing the myth of the individual acting alone, it may be hard to ask for help. Many of us have the belief that we’re weak if we have to ask for help.

As Sendak notes, the hard part is in the asking. People want to make a difference. They want to contribute to others. But no one can contribute unless someone is willing to ask for that contribution.

So the real difference is made not only by the person who provides the help but equally by the person who asks for it.

So make a contribution to someone today. Ask for help. Make a request. Make two. Or three. 

It's Better To Ask Permission Than Forgiveness

There is an old saying that it is better to ask forgiveness than permission, the idea being that if we wait for permission, we may hear “no,” but if we just do what we believe to be best and then ask for forgiveness for doing so, we’re more likely to get our way.
The old saying is wrong. If you review in your life the relationships that didn’t work out or contained a lot of conflict or where there was often tension and stress, you’ll find that those relationships ran into trouble because you (or the other person) did something before getting agreement (permission) and then apologized (asked for forgiveness) afterwards.
Trust is harmed when agreements are broken. In fact, I’d suggest that the basis for relationship trouble is broken agreements whether it’s the businessperson who didn’t keep her word, the service person who didn’t show up at the time he said he would or the son/daughter who returned home later than promised. All of these are broken agreements and all lead to a lack of trust.
Here’s one example where an individual asked for forgiveness rather than permission and it caused problems.
My wife and I own a piece of property near Olympia, Washington. We don’t own an RV, but the previous owner had created a space for an RV to hook up to and get water and electricity.
Recently, a friend had sold his home and moved into an RV while looking for another house. He asked if he could rent our RV space and store a generator in our garage. We said yes with the agreement that he would be gone by a certain date, that he put only his generator in our garage and nothing else and that the only vehicle he kept on the property was his RV.
We were gone while he moved in. When we returned, we discovered that he had moved a van (in addition to the RV) on to the property, and that he had stored several pieces of furniture, in addition to the generator, in the garage.
He apologized but it created a rift in our relationship. We’re gone from this property for long stretches and we were concerned about what else he might do in our absence. We also became concerned that he might not leave by the date promised.
The issue is not the furniture he put in our garage or the van. The issue is trust. Whenever agreements are broken, trust is harmed and relationships suffer. We don’t know what we would have said had he come to us to renegotiate the agreement, but by following the maxim that it is better to ask forgiveness than permission, he cut off any possibility of renegotiation and harmed our relationship.
If you look at any of your failed/failing/ less than successful relationships, you will find that there was a breakdown in trust because an agreement was broken.
If you want to have relationships that work, ask for permission and get clear agreements before you take action.