Employing Differences, Episode 85: How do I do something different?

Paul: 0:08

Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Karen: 0:14

I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:16

And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:18

Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, "How do I do something different?"

Paul: 0:27

So a lot of the work that Karen and I do is about helping individuals and groups do different things. They notice that they're working in a particular way, or they're behaving in a particular way, they're doing a certain thing, and they know that to get a different result, they need to do something different. And as it turns out, that's hard. If it were easy, we wouldn't be working with them. They would have already changed. This is one of the things I say about

any particular change: 0:54

"If it were easy, you would have done it already." So what we wanted to do today is explore what does the journey of learning how to do something different than you have been doing work? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do we actually come to behave in one particular way in a particular set of situations, and then over time, change the way that we're behaving in those situations and do something different? Because it is not a switch that we flip. We don't instantly go from one to the other. So we wanted to start by exploring that and start in the place of understanding why it is you do what you're currently doing.

Karen: 1:44

Yeah, and I think the first thing to know is that the thing you're currently doing, you've probably been doing it for a lot longer than you've been aware of it. So we're gonna start with the idea that to the extent that we have habitual behaviors that don't actually serve us, probably we started out not even knowing we did them. Or certainly not realizing the impact they were having on other people. That's another variant. And that, when we get interested in changing them, the first thing which is actually the hardest thing has already happened, which is we have become aware that there is a thing we would like to do differently. And we probably became aware of that through feedback of some sort from somebody else, or some kind of personal growth effort. You can look through previous episodes for the whole feedback piece. There are good and bad ways to do that, so you can help each other out. But we're starting today from this, "Okay, so now I know I do this thing that doesn't in the end serve me. It doesn't turn out to be useful. It doesn't have the results I would like it to have. And, so where did that come from?"

Paul: 2:53

So I have a actually a very relevant example for me right now. One of the things that I have uncovered is that I, for a long time, did not receive feedback well. Feedback when it was given to me if it was not given in a very specific, very clear way, I would not receive it well. Specifically, what I would do is I would interpret that feedback as an indictment of me personally. So I would get feedback on a piece of work that I've done, and my brain would go to the place of "...and you're a terrible person." And so the behavior that I adopted was that I would stop seeking out feedback because I knew that I would not receive it well. And so that was the behavior: I would avoid asking for feedback on stuff. Even when I knew that feedback would probably be useful, I would not ask for it. Now, the interesting thing that's happened is that, I've done a bunch of personal work, and I've now gotten way, way better at receiving feedback. But I still have that residual pattern of not asking for it, of not seeking it out. And so that's a case where the reason why I did that was actually useful for me. Because I knew that if I got feedback, I could potentially go into this spiral of not feeling great about myself. And so not asking for feedback was a way of me protecting myself against a real danger, a real thing that was bad. And that behavior no longer serves me now.

Karen: 4:29

Yeah. And I think it happens a lot. What you're describing is a case where you did a thing, you created the bad thing that now you were trying to avoid. You have the power to go back and change that. But probably there's an even earlier iteration where you didn't have the power to change that. Where you adapted that behavior because it worked well and for most of us, the majority of our behavior started in childhood. It started in our family of origin. It started in the people we lived with when we were two, three, four, five years old. Those are really, really formative years. And we learned within that environment, what was acceptable, or what worked, or what got us the results that we needed to survive in that environment. And so one of the things that I find really useful to think about it's actually a frame from the Imago Relationships Theory is that these patterns that we have, they call them brilliant adaptations. Because your little person was a genius. When you were little, you figured out this is the thing that works in this environment, and you got really, really good at it. And it's not because you were young and stupid. It's because you were brilliant. And you were very good at navigating a flawed environment. Because we all grew up in flawed environments. We didn't any of us have perfect parents. And so there's this idea that one of the things we want to do if we want to change that behavior, is get curious about, "How was it brilliant?" How was it absolutely necessary and appropriate, and really, really smart at some previous point when we learned it, and really acknowledge that. It was a good thing, and in fact, it may even have good applications now, even as we're saying, "... and it's not really working for me in the way I'm using it today."

Paul: 6:22

Yeah, there's, there's the idea that when these things are super habitual, they have us, we don't have them. And so we do them even when they're not needed or useful. I love the idea of thinking about these as brilliant strategies, because it is not useful if we want to change that behavior for us to look at how we act in those situations and beat ourselves up about it. And pile shame on top of these old behaviors, these existent behaviors. Because they are super useful. We did them for a reason. Saying we're a terrible person because we keep doing these things doesn't help. It doesn't actually help us to do something different. If anything, that shame spiral keeps us in that old behavior. And so being able to sort of see it, and acknowledge it for what it is and go, "Oh, yeah, this is really useful in these particular situations. And is not useful in these other situations where it's showing up for me. Those are the situations where I want to learn how to do something different," I think is a really important part of that journey. Recognizing where it came from, where it is useful, and where it's showing up but is not useful, rather than just saying it's never useful.

Karen: 7:51

Yeah, and I think that, for most of us, we are in behaviors when we're in certain stories. So there may be when this thing happens when I'm receiving feedback, particularly if it's critical that I know I go into this pattern to borrow your example. And so you can sometimes get there. "Okay, I'm receiving feedback. I know I'm in danger of this pattern. I know I want to shift it." Most of us don't get there that easily. Most of us, our first round is, "I did that thing again." Okay, now I can stop and think about okay, "I did that thing. What what was going on around me when I did the thing, what was I feeling? What was I thinking?" And track it backwards. And this is your shame piece, of the tendency is to say, "I did that thing again. I'm a terrible person., what's wrong with me?" Whatever. Everybody has their own version of a story. "No wonder nobody likes me. I mean, it can you can go anywhere with this."

Paul: 8:59

Yes, we've got all kinds of stuff.

Karen: 9:01

But if we can disrupt that story and go, "Oh, I saw myself do it!" Here's an opportunity to think about,"Okay, so what, what brought it on? Where did that come from?" And what happens is that over time, we can gradually trace further and further back in this series of the things that lead to, in the end, of that behavior. And each time around, we can get a little closer to noticing and therefore being able to shift earlier in the process.

Paul: 9:33

Celebrating the awareness, I think is an important part of that. "Hey, it's two days later, and I noticed that I did this thing that I always do." Previously, you would have been completely unaware of it. You've made progress that is worth celebrating. And yeah, the idea is that as you become more aware of it, you become aware of it sooner and sooner. So you become aware of it half an hour after you did it. You become aware of it ten minutes after it. You become aware of it as you're doing it. And then you get to that point of becoming aware that you're about to do it. And that's where you can actually start to shift differently. So every point along there, of that awareness coming sooner and sooner, is a sign of progress. Where we're getting closer and closer to actually being able to do something differently. But until we have the awareness, we can't. We're just gonna keep doing the thing that we've always been doing. And so celebrating that, rather than piling shame on, I think is is really useful. You and I have talked before about how there's two things that are paired, that go along with this. There's the behavior the thing that we're doing and there's the feeling that we have. And what's interesting is that we may have an awareness of the feeling, which clues us into the fact we're about to do the behavior, or we may notice we're doing the behavior and then go, "Oh, I guess I'm having that feeling now, aren't I?" And it's interesting that for different people, we have an awareness of one or the other first.

Karen: 11:16

I think the key there is to notice that each is a cue to the other. If you're a person who is more aware of feelings, then paying attention to, "I'm noticing that feeling, I'm noticing the anxiety that leads me into this defensive behavior," or "I'm noticing the sort of lack of control around me that leads me to sort of step in and be more forceful in something," or whatever it is. Some of us are better at tracking those feelings. And so use that as a strength to go,"Okay, I felt that way. Did I do the thing?" Or, "I am feeling that way? Am I doing the thing? Am I using that tone of voice? Am I interrupting people?" Whatever your behavior is? And then the flip side of it is some of us are more able to notice the behavior. "Oh, geez, I interrupted again. Is it from that feeling? Yeah, it is. So why am I feeling so out of control right now?" Either one of them is going to help you track, and as you get the linkage this feeling and this behavior tend to go together then you've got more abilities to be aware of it and to notice it and to see it coming. And that whole package gives you the step further back, which is,"What are the conditions under which this happens to me? What are the conditions under which I feel this way? What are the conditions under which I behave this way?" And so that's even a step earlier. And usually the thing we're aware of is the story we're telling ourselves. And then before that comes the actual thing that happened. So all of those are steps along the path. And although they may happen to us often in a few seconds we go from one to the next it may take weeks or months of gradually working backwards along that path to get to a real understanding of, "Oh, this type of environment, I have to be extra careful in. Around a person who has this kind of speech pattern, or that kind of work method, or..." I mean, it can be the smell in a room. It can be any number of really subtle things or bigger things. When I'm in a large group of people, this happens to me. When I'm working one on one, this happens to me. And as you can get that sense of it, then you can begin to figure out coping mechanisms that are actually effective so you're not depending on the old childhood coping mechanisms that aren't working anymore.

Paul: 13:51

So the other important piece there is having the thing that you want to do instead. We've been talking a lot about developing this awareness of when we're falling into our habitual patterns, but we also have to have the "So what is it that I actually want to be doing differently?" What is that? And the more specific you can be about that, the easier it will be to do it. So actually thinking about what is the behavior. What are the things that I want to say? What are the words that I want to use? What are the ways that I want to act? Not in a sort of vague way, like, "Oh, well, I want to listen more carefully." Like, well, what does more carefully look like? How would we know? Having what is the thing that you want to do instead. "Instead of interrupting, what I want to do is wait until somebody has finished talking, and then ask them, 'Is there anything else?'" That is a specific replacement behavior that you can have. Yeah, I want to become aware of when I'm interrupting, but I also need to know what is it I want to do instead. And then to your point, being aware of the things that can knock you off balance. What are the situations in which you need to be on your guard because you know that it's going to be hard for you to do those things. And then what are the things that you can do to restore that sense of balance, to get back to that place of being able to try the new behavior, even if it's awkward, even if it's unskillful which it will be the first number of times that you do it. You're trying a new thing. You're not going to be good at it right out the gate. But having and noticing that, "Oh, my perfectionist tendency is going to pop up here. So I'm going to stop trying to do the thing because I know that it's not coming out well. So what do I want to do about that?" So having the thing that you want to do, but also having an idea of what might throw you off and how do you want to recover can be really useful.

Karen: 15:56

Yeah. And I want to say just a bit about that unskillful piece. Yes, a new behavior is always going to feel clunky and uncomfortable, and probably even unsafe "What am I doing here?" when we haven't done it before. And sometimes the reason we're not succeeded in getting a new behavior on board is actually that we are lacking a skill. It's stunning, actually, how much we aren't good at listening. We may want to go build a listening skill. And I think we've talked about that in other episodes of ways to actively do that. But whatever that thing is, if in fact,"Okay, I know I want to do this behavior, but every time I try it, it goes sideways," maybe the thing is to keep trying it, but maybe the thing is to go get some training in that in some way. Whether it's to read a book, or do some practicing, or to get with a partner and have them help you walk through that. There are lots of ways. But being aware that most of us don't actually have all the skills we need to function well in teams and complex environments in the world we live in. And so you really might be that that behavior you want to change, the reason you're not doing the new behavior is that you actually don't have the skill to do it yet. And you might work on that.

Paul: 17:13

Yeah. The last piece that I'll add into this, we've been talking a lot about interpersonal work you can do, and some of this has also been about, "What training can I get? How can I practice this thing?" The other thing that's useful when you're building a new skill when you're trying to do something different is to let people know that you're trying to do it differently and ask them for feedback on how you're doing. Because it might feel super weird and awkward to you and is super useful and effective for the people that you're trying it with. Like, "I think that that just went horribly". And they're just thinking, "I actually got to finish my sentence! I actually got to say everything that I wanted!" And so setting up an agreement with people and just saying, "Hey, one of the things I'm trying to get better at is not interrupting. I'm going to ask you for feedback about that, as we move forward. Would you be willing to let me know how I'm doing?" Because you're giving them permission, but you're also getting them to pay attention to a specific thing. Not just"Could you give me some feedback?" It's like, "I'm trying to get better at this. Could you let me know how it's working? And how is it landing with you?" Because you're probably doing it so that you have better interactions with them. And just even asking for that kind of feedback, letting them know that you're trying to work on it, and that you value their impression of it is going to build a stronger relationship with them, which is probably going to improve things, even if you don't actually get better at it. But being very specific about, "I'm working on this thing, I'm trying to do x instead of y, could you let me know how I'm doing?"

Karen: 18:55

Yeah. So I think where we sort of tracked here is when I notice behavior that I want to change, how do I go about that? How do I do something different? The first thing is, you've already done the first hard part, which is becoming aware that you do a thing they don't want to do. So give yourself credit for that. And then just know that there's a whole line of cause and effect that results in the behavior that we're doing. And a whole process towards undoing that. So what we're really looking for is increasing awareness and curiosity about where is it coming from and where in the pattern of where it's coming from can I begin to recognize it? And really avoiding the shame trap of, "Oh, I did that thing again, what is wrong with me?" and all the stories that we can tell ourselves about that, and instead telling ourselves a story of "This was a brilliant adaptation once. I was brilliant when I learned how to use this. And not it's not working for me anymore." So having that sort of positive mindset about it of,"This is going to take some time and I am making progress," and tracking feelings and behaviors and all of the sort of circumstances around it so you can take those positive steps and getting help from those around you either to learn skills or to get feedback that making it more of a team effort, you don't have to be in this by yourself.

Paul: 20:19

Absolutely. Well, that's gonna do it for us for today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 20:25

And I'm Karen Gimnig and this has been Employing Differences.