TO DO LISTS, OR NOT TO DO LISTS
A nice coalescence of things in the past day. I watched that silly Dr. Dwyer, saw several “do lists” for being happy, and some “things to avoid giving your energy to” list. All were these great ideas of how we can all live our life so much better than we do now. Ok, how long do we have to read and listen to all this stuff before we begin to realize that it just does not work that way. All these “ideas” of how to live do very little to change someone’s actual life. And so few of these salesmen offer an understanding of how we work and why we are stuck. It requires lots of self reflection to get out of our own way. Yes, there is nothing to do, but just gain awareness. The crap falls away of itself.
So how do we work? Here is a little model I used to use in corporations for the design of new work methods. It is holographic, which means that it works everywhere on everything. All creations come from a CONCEPT, to a SYSTEM, to a PROCESS, to ACTION. There is no way around this progression. So, if you have some grand CONCEPT of what you want to be, it will not work. By that, I mean it will not magically turn into ACTION, without going through these other steps. This is why all those grand ideas we have been preached to about, never turn into long term and consistent action.
Here is a simple example of how it works. Say you want to build a house. You have all these neat ideas (CONCEPT) about size, shape, bedrooms, kitchens, and other living space. If you went to a builder with that, he would laugh you out of his office. You go to an architect. They take your ideas and translate them into all the aspects of a house. (SYSTEM) The architect paints a picture of how it all holds together and makes sense. She turns it into something you can see. But, if you handed that to a carpenter and plumber, they would laugh you out of the office. You take it to a builder.
The building contractor would lay out a process of materials needed, delivery, schedule of building from laying the foundation to finishing touches. This the PROCESS stage of making a house. Then you bring in the pieces in the appropriate order and create the actual house. That is the ACTION level. And in the action level, the skilled workers follow the process and attend to the doing of the actual building, and then you have a house of your dreams. It is how everything works. Stop the insanity of thinking your grand ideas will make you something.
OK, got all that? Now, re-designing our living goes the other way. We are NOT a new construction. We are already here and have many, many ideas (CONCEPTS) of our living. We have an intricate designed system of all the various identities, images, ego states, and other persona’s. That is our SYSTEM. It is not aligned and integrated. It is like 20 different architects designed a house without ever talking to each other! Those architects would be our parents, teachers, and important others early in our life.
We have our own habits, quirks, methods, procedures, skill sets, behaviors, etc. That is our PROCESS. And of course, we have the actual (ACTION), moments, where we do our living and we are mostly unaware of. So we are this multiple conceptualized, un-integrated, random method, collection of random actions. And we wonder why we are confused with what we do!
So to really redesign your life, you reverse the creation levels. This is what I did with companies. You start with where you are now, see if you can improve and clarify that process, see what systems support that, and finally, find out what concepts are behind that way of working. It is how real change happens.
You are the ongoing operation of your designed life. That is the process and system levels. The ones we are mostly unaware of. If you want to change your actions, the first thing is to be brutally honest with your action. If you will not be present to what you actually do, then there is no chance of changing that. Most of us do not want to do that, it makes us too uncomfortable. If you can adopt the sense of , “OK, that is what I am doing” without judgment, then there is a chance. Without awareness at this level, all is lost. That is why we observe and gather data on the factory floor. The factory floor of your life is what you do every day.
Then, you look for patterns of this behavior. Patterns are nothing but repeated processes over time. That means, “every time she does this, I do that”. Nail one pattern down and you are finding out who you really are. Then, you go to the system level of you. That means, you ask what are the rewards I find in myself for continuing to act this way. This can be hard when you do not like that way you act. But, believe me, if you have a pattern of behavior, some part of you likes this. You have to uncover that part of your ego, image, or identity system. You have to face that part of you that likes the parts of you, that you think you hate.
If you can find those parts of you, (I call them our many “I’s”) Then you look at them and then you may be able to hear the concepts or beliefs that keep them alive. An example here. If you have a pattern of getting into arguments of rightness, there may be an “I” in you who has lots of energy around being in charge and right, and behind that may be an idea that “valuable people are right most of the time”. All of our life is designed from a bunch of ideas we were given/learned early in our growing up. They are mostly invisible now, but continue to have a powerful effect. The idea gives life to the system of “I”s , and that leads to patterns of behavior, which are the acts of our life. We have constructed a perfect house of our living that may be very unsatisfying to us. To reconstruct, we have to start with how we work now.
Anyone, no matter how many books they have sold, who comes along and tells you that you just need to change your “ideas” is a phony. They do not know how we humans work. If you do not know how we work, then you have no business telling people how to change. You are just selling more crap. Tlane 3/4/14
Changing “patterns of behavior” are the most difficult.
Hey, nice to see you here. Patterns are a link pin of our hidden system of self and all those actions. The change does not happen as a matter of “will”. Anyone who observes themselves will see that. thanks K.