How to Finally Change Your Ways, Part 3

Here we are at the third post in the series on my most recent primo favorito book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, by Chip & Dan Heath. I am at the NAPO conference this week– how many people have I mentioned this book to so far?? I love talking about it. You may want to read last week's post if you need to catch up– will also be posting links at the bottom of each series post as I go.

Here's the quick recap: Two parts of yourself– the Rider (the smart one who wants to go places) and the Elephant (a big reluctant animal who's really in control if he wants to be, who seeks comfort and instant gratification, but has great power and energy if led correctly). To make change and create new habits, whether personally or in an organization, we have to manage these two characters that live within us, and we're exploring exactly how, based on concepts from the Switch book. We're relating all of this to the personal change necessary when you want to get organized.

This week: Motivating our Elephants. How do we get this emotional, somewhat childish side of ourselves to get moving down the path?

First, find the feeling. Our Elephants are looking for something emotional to hook onto that will motivate them into action when rational facts will not. If I said to you that "x" percent of preschoolers will suffer from malnutrition this year, you'd say "that's terrible," but it might not push you to action. But if I showed you photos of starving children crying, you might do something about it. So in your organizing efforts, consider what emotional hook might motivate you… is it more compelling to you cut the number of emails in your inbox down from 3000 to 35 (a rational benefit), or is it better to imagine using the time you save to go to your child's basketball game (an emotionally exciting idea)? What makes your eyes light up?

Second, shrink the change. Your Elephant is looking for a fast payoff, so you want to give yourself the "baby step" easy actions that feel like big progress. The weekly menu plans of projects in our Clutter Diet® program are designed to give our members "Just A Bite" to get you going and make you feel successful quickly (Just A Bite(SM) is also the name of our Thursday newsletter). Our Main Dish project is at least one hour of effort in a specified area of the house– our Side Dish projects are two 15-minute efforts, and our Sensible Snack is a five-minute tip or task. We always end our plans with a Dessert–something fun to do to reward yourself for getting your projects done. Guess what? The Dessert is there for your Elephant, and so is the time suggestion! If you can just set a timer and work for 15 minutes, you're going to feel successful, you can check off your project when you "weigh in" each week and lose Clutter-Pounds, and you'll be ahead, even if it's just a little. And what often happens is that you've kicked the inertia and you end up working on the project longer because the success gives you momentum.

Third, focus on GROWTH and expect failure as part of growing. I was so pleased that this book mentions one of my other favorite books, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck (click here for Kindle edition). Mindset explains that there are two mindsets, Fixed and Growth. Said simply, someone with a fixed mindset believes they are already set with all the talent and ability they are going to have, and someone with a growth mindset believes they can learn new abilities and gain mastery through effort, expecting that practice and failure and difficulty will be part of doing so. If your Elephant experiences its first efforts at organizing as difficult, with a fixed mindset he might just sit right down in the middle of the path and whine, "It's just too haaaaard." But if your Elephant expects that difficulty is part of the process and he has learned that growth comes from making effort and that you just have to KEEP WALKING… he will be less likely to give up.

You can motivate your Elephant by making sure there are small, quick successes, expecting challenges along the way, and making sure it's all propelled by something emotional and even tangible rather than only a rational, calculated reason (a "must" instead of a "should"). What gets your Elephant going? Share in the comments!

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