Over the years I have learnt a lot from many people. Sometimes I learn from a newly employed graduate and other times from a wise old sage. Over the last two years I’ve learned from my colleagues, the Profs. The Profs are Professor Karen Pine and Professor Ben (C) Fletcher, Psychologists from the University of Hertforshire. They spend their time understanding what goes on in our head, why we do or don’t do certain things and what impact the act of doing or not doing something has on us.
Ben and Karen have helped me solve the mystery of stress and ‘coherence’ or ‘congruence’ as some people refer to it, is the key. In English, this translates as ‘walking the talk’.
The more we behave in line with what we think and say, the happier we are, the less stressed we are. If I think and/or say I need to exercise more, but don’t, it has a negative impact on me. The more we walk the talk, the more coherent or congruent we are, the less stressed we are.
Unfortunately the process of changing our behaviour to match what we think is not a simple one. There are a heap of reasons why we struggle to change but in the main it’s because our brains are in charge.
Our brains are highly developed machines that process vast quantities of information every second. In order to cope with all this information, our brains operate on autopilot using habits to short-cut the need to make decisions. Very clever but . . . . . . not all of these habits are good for us.
We behave before we think which means we drive when we could have walked, we make a snide comment to our partner when we could have listened, we opened the biscuit tin as soon as we flicked on the kettle etc.
We don’t think about these things before we do them. We just do them.
The majority of behaviour change techniques rely on changing our thinking but as we’ve just seen habits often ignore the thinking stage completely.
Even when we can create the time to think something different we still have to do something different if we want different results and moving from thinking something different to doing something different requires ‘willpower’. This is something that’s in short supply.
So Ben, Karen and now me, recommend doing something different as the beginning of the process that leads to different results. Different results could mean you become a better manager or leader, you become more innovative or lose weight, you stop your antisocial behaviour or quit smoking, you improve your parenting or start attending school.
Ben and Karen have developed a programme called ‘Do Something Different‘ that gets people used to the idea of doing something different gently. Participants or ‘Do-ers’ as they’re known are asked complete an initial ‘Diagnostic’ online. This determines the content of the programme which is a series of seemingly easy to complete tasks (usually delivered by text message). The tasks or Do’s as they are known are designed to get Do-ers back into the swing of doing something different.
Do’s may encourage Doers to ‘sit in a different seat to watch the TV’ or ‘walk a different way to the local shop’ or ‘taste something you’ve never tasted before’. After a while the programme starts to encourage Doers to experiement with behaviours they don’t normally use. Someone who considers themself to be a risk-taker may be encouraged to ‘play it safe’. Someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be ‘assertive’ may be given the task of trying out a more assertive approach to a situation. Whilst Do-ers
Ultimately it all leads to a persons web of habits being broken down. They find themselves able to behave differently to make different choices. They find themselves able to walk the talk. To act in line with what they believe. They become less stressed . . . . . happier.
It sounds too simple to be true . . . . but it’s not. The results really are remarkable. I wouldn’t be involved if they weren’t. ChannelDo on YouTube gives you a better taste of what it’s all about.
We progress when our future is more than our past continued. That means Doing Something Different. Professor Ben (C) Fletcher
