Wednesday 8 August 2007

Do people really change?

Do people change? This is a major question I’ve asked myself in recent past. I believe there is the possibility for change in every single person however, to effect change; people need to acknowledge they have problems and truly want to address these problems and they must be willing to fully commit themselves to changing and doing the hard work that it takes to change.

Some people appear to be determined to believe that what is will always be. I see this as the lamest excuse on the planet to defend destructive, foolish & immature behavioural patterns. People are not forced to remain imprisoned forever to patterns detrimental to them. It is only convenient to hide under the umbrella of such thinking after we have exercised our power of choice wrongly.

I was in a conversation with a bloke a couple of months back and I was impressed with his decision to effect positive changes to certain areas of his life knowing the excesses he gets himself involved in. After the converstion, Idecided to go the extra mile. Each time I came across a book or material that I thought will be of good influence on his decision to change, I informed him about it. Couple of months down the line, I realised he might not make it through effecting the change. Reason? SOCIAL DRAG!

Social drag is what happens when you undergo a significant personal shift, yet everyone around you still treats you the same. Whenever a person makes a significant change in their lives, it can take the rest of the world a few years to catch up I have come to realised. This is especially true with family and friends that you don’t see often. Their mental model of who you are is likely to drift behind the real you.

Social drag is explained as the lag time between your changing and the rest of the world giving up its mental image of who you are based on who you have been (to them) in the past. You may have heard the story about the crabs in the bucket. Just as one is about to climb out, the rest of the crabs pull them back down. Sometimes success threatens people simply because it threatens the status quo and the status quo feels stable and predictable.

As far as I am concerned, social drag is a nuisance and a menace. It can be more serious if the drag threatens to slow you down or to erase your progress. You can choose to accept and then ignore it, which often works well when you’re dealing with acquaintances, like co-workers you’re about to leave behind anyway. But if you’re dealing with friends or family members who will be around for a while, I recommend doing something to interrupt their old pattern of relating to you, so you create space for them to get to know the new you. This could be gently but firmly correcting the way they relate to you consistently till they get the message.

I am of a strong opinion that people can change but not all persons have the strong will required to go through the process of change. If you’ve got an irritatingly nagging habit, an attitude that stinks or a rude speech pattern, a complex problem…whatever negativity you are not comfy with in your life, you’ve got to understand the change process starts with you.

I will love to know what your opinion is on change. Hit me back!

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