“It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it is the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.”
― David Allan Coe
Are you a great pyramid or jenga tower?
You made a change. Now what?
Think about this. You want to stop eating chocolate. You wake up and say "no more chocolate", and you don't touch any for a few months. Congratulations!
Then, the washer dies. It's an expense you didn't expect. You're stressed, and before you know it, you're halfway through a block of Dairy Milk.
When we look at the problem in isolation, we're not looking at life as a whole. You're missing the reason why you do what you do, the patterns that lead to the problem space and not creating tools to manage change.
When you take out a few blocks in a Jenga tower, what are you doing? You're changing the structure - making it unstable. Rather, if you look at how all the pieces fit together and how they're interconnected, you can create a lasting structure. Our approach rarely focuses on the presenting issue. We look at the patterns you're doing to yourself that create the problem. If we can work on the 'why' and, identify the 'how', we can look at creating alternative ways to do better.
the 4 stages of competence
You've been doing the problem for so long, can you imagine doing life any other way?
There was a time you didn't know how to tie your shoes, Umpteen years later, do you find yourself realising after the fact, that your shoes are laced? You don't even remember going through the motions. That's part of the 4 stages of competence.
Your problem space is what you do to yourself - not who you are. You're not a procrastinator or an anxious person or addicted to cigarettes. or a big eater. It's a pattern you've developed. You've become unconsciously competent at the problem. You've labelled yourself the Procrastinator, the Anxious, the Smoker, the Eater. Are you ready to separate yourself from your bad habits?
Let's think about the Jenga tower for a minute. When you take out one piece without rearranging the other pieces, you make the tower unstable. That's like going cold turkey and cutting out chocolate without looking at the other parts of your life and habits. If you sit back and think about the unconscious competent steps you created, and replace them with an unconsciously competent process that serves you, you're likely to see long-lasting benefits.
Are you ready?
