Stoic Wellbeing - Keep Your Commitments: The Real Reason People Won’t Change

Episode Date: January 7, 2023

Around January 1, we set goals that we intend to keep. But most of us break these vows before the month is over – why? What’s the real reason people won’t change? And how can we use Stoicism and modern psychology to start? To truly be free and move forward, we need to cultivate helpful thoughts and let go of unhelpful ones. This is how we become resilient and learn to flow with life instead of fighting it.  But what if you’re not even aware of your unhelpful thoughts?  I’ve talked about different ways to uncover your blind spots on this podcast, and today you’ll learn about a new one from Harvard’s Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, authors of the book Immunity to Change.  sarahmikutel.comDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

A lot of us say that we want more meaning in our lives to be part of something greater than ourselves, to feel more connected to other people in the universe. This begins with becoming more connected with who we are and more self-aware of what's unconsciously motivating us. Welcome to Stoic Wellbeing. I'm your host to Sarah Megatel, an American in England who uses stoicism and other techniques to help my coaching clients become more present, productive, and open-hearted. I am here to help you, too. Visit Stoicwellbeing.com to learn more. Around January 1st, we set goals that we intend to keep, but most of us break these vows before the month is over. Why? What is the real reason we won't change? And how can we use Stoicism and modern psychology to start?

Epictetus was born a slave, which was completely out of his control. Despite this, he was allowed to study Stoicism in ancient Rome, was eventually freed, and he went on to become the most influential Stoic teacher of his day, if not of all time. And he let his students, many of whom came from rich elite families, know that they were actually the ones who were the slaves, because they hadn't yet learned to live with reason, or rather they were born rational. But our rationality gets buried under the burdens of life. As we grow, we develop different coping mechanisms to help us survive in this life. Epicitas didn't use the phrase coping mechanism, but he understood that the external world affected, his students to the point that they forgot that they had control over their internal world. They tried to control what was out of their hands. They were emotionally reactive. They felt like the world was happening to them and didn't realize that their thoughts were opinions based on their particular point of view. Epictees taught his students how to be self-aware that they had control

over their thoughts and actions and that they should challenge their first impressions of a situation, zoom out, take a broader perspective. To truly be free, we need to cultivate helpful thoughts and let go of unhelpful ones. This is how we become resilient and learn to flow with life instead of fighting against it. But what if you're not even aware of your unhelpful thoughts, your blind spots? I've talked about different ways to uncover your blind spots on this podcast, and today you will learn about a new one from Harvard's Robert Kegan and Lisa Lasco-Lahey. If your doctor said you would die soon if you didn't change your lifestyle, would you change? Most people would not. In fact, only one in seven people would adjust their habits in order to survive. And this is according to a study cited in the book, Immunity to Change. Why have we been saying we want to lose 10 pounds for the last 10 years? Or more seriously, why won't people take medicine that could prevent a stroke? Information is not the problem. We know what we need to do. According to the authors of Immunity to Change, and that's Robert Kegan and Lisa Lasco-Lahey who I mentioned earlier, the problem is

competing commitments. Part of us is committed to the status quo. We are devoting our energy to not changing, and we don't realize that we're doing this. We can find out what our competing commitments are by doing an exercise that Kegan and Leahy call an initial immunity map, and I will give you an example from the book. David says he's committed to better focus on a few critical things, including delegation, but in reality, he's still distracted by shiny objects, sacrificing his personal life to take on more work, and he doesn't ask for help. These actions aren't matching his commitment. They are competing with it. David needs to ask himself, what do I worry would happen if I followed through with what I said I was going to do? His worries,

fear of missing out, fear of upsetting people or feeling selfish. Kegan and Leahy say to return the fear into a statement that shows how you are actively committed to not doing what you say you want to do. This reveals your hidden competing commitment. For David, Kikin and Leahy say this statement would be, I'm committed to independence and selflessness. I would turn up the heat and say, I'm committed to taking on more than I can handle and hurting my personal relationships. The point is not to beat yourself up or try to change immediately.

It's to get you to recognize a blind spot and to consider where you actually want to put your time and attention and effort. What commitments do you want to devote your energy to once you have, more information. Big assumptions David is making based on his competing commitments. He'll lose self-respect if he depends on others and will be disliked if he considers his own needs. Here are the steps to the initial immunity map process. If you want to figure out what is blocking you, ask yourself, what is my goal? What am I committed to changing? And why does this matter to me? Next, what obstacles am I creating to get in the way of this? And this is about your behavior, what you're actually

doing or not doing. This isn't about your thoughts and feelings. If you followed through with what you say you want, what are you afraid would happen? Based on this information, what are your competing commitments? And what assumptions are you making based on these competing commitments? In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Kegan and Leahy said, competing commitments should not be seen as weaknesses. They represent some version of self-protection, a perfectly natural and reasonable human impulse. The question is, if competing commitments are a form of self-protection, what are people protecting themselves from? The answers usually lie in what we call their big assumptions, deeply rooted beliefs about themselves and the world

around them. These assumptions put in order to the world and at the same time suggest ways in which the world can go out of order. Competing commitments arise from these assumptions, driving behaviors unwittingly designed to keep the picture intact. People rarely realize they hold these big assumptions because quite simply they accept them as reality, often formed long ago and seldom, if ever, critically examined. Big assumptions are woven into the very fabric of people's existence, end quote. So that was from an article that they had in the Harvard Business review and a brave years ago. We all have on tinted glasses and we think that our way of seeing the world is reality, but it's only our perception. We make up a lot of stories to make sense of

our world, which is why the Stoics say, it's not things that have said us, but our judgments about them, our opinions, the stories we tell ourselves. There are many different ways of seeing the world. In previous episodes, I've talked about how the Enneagram is a typology that organizes people into nine personalities with a lot of nuance, but that's the very high level. Your Enneagram type is based on your core fear, desire, and what motivates you, what drive you to protect yourself, how you do it, how you're getting your needs met. The Enneagram is a great tool for getting to the root of why you do the things you do, and to also help you better understand why other people do the things they do, what drives them. Let's take type 9, for example,

their core desire is to maintain internal and external peace, and their core fear is separation. But if you're A-9 who doesn't know anything about the anagram, you probably don't realize how much conflict avoidance and the desire for comfort rule your life. Let's do a type 9 immunity map. Say you're a type 9 manager in a corporate environment, and on New Year's Eve, you tell yourself you are committed to speaking up more in meetings. A week or two later, your reality doesn't match your stated commitment. At the end of meetings, you're still kicking yourself for not sharing more. You internally scream when somebody voices what you have been thinking during the entire meeting, and you wish you had said it. What are you worried would happen if you followed through on your

commitment to speak up more? You might be afraid you'd turn red when all eyes are on you. You might worry people won't understand your idea. You won't look professional. Based on this information, you're committed to staying quiet and self-preservation. A competing commitment statement might be something like, I'm committed to looking professional, or I'm committed to staying invisible. I'm committed to staying comfortable. The big assumption you're making is that if you speak up, you'll look like a fool. And why does this matter to you?

Because you don't want to be tossed out of the group. You're assuming that if you speak up and blush or are misunderstood, you'll be ostracized. You're motivated to preserve harmony inside yourself and inside the room to avoid conflict to blend in. But are your assumptions true? The Stoics would say we should always be examining our impressions. What's a good way to do this? Kegan and Leahy say, step one is simply recognizing your competing commitments. This is all you have to do in the beginning.

You don't need to try to change things right away. Just stay mindful of how your assumptions are driving your actions. Step two, find evidence where your assumption is wrong. Step three, figure out where your assumption has come. from. Where has it shown up in your life? Find the pattern. Step four, challenge your assumptions through behavioral experiments that you share with someone else. Kagan and Leahy say that we should share our experiment ideas with somebody else because most of us will either pick something that's so hard we will never follow through on it or so easy that we're not really testing

anything. So come up with tests that are challenging but doable. Step five, review the results of your experiments, do more of them, and question your assumptions. In my type 9 example, an experiment could be to try to be the first person to speak up in a meeting. This isn't entirely in your control, of course. Somebody could beat you to the punch, but you can set that intention that you're going to be one of the first people to speak in every meeting. You could warm yourself up first by chatting with people before the meeting starts. During the meeting, if you're struggling to get a word in, you can raise your hand when you have something to say. After the meeting, review your assumption that speaking up would make you look unprofessional or that would separate you from the group.

There's a huge chance that the complete opposite would happen. You'll become closer to the group because they'll get a better understanding of what you're thinking you will look more professional. Okay, you've conducted your experiments. What's next? Kegan and Leahy say to map out your continuum of progress. And there's four parts to this. What are you now committed to doing? What are your first step? What does progress look like? What does success look like? Going back to that David example from the book Immunity to change, and I'm just going to quote this whole little section here, David's new commitment is to be better at increasing the number of things I delegate to people in order to have fewer

things on my plate. David is very clear and specific about what he wants to happen. First steps forward. Meet with my team and let them know what behavior I'm trying to change. why and how. Role play through some examples, integrating them into what types of tasks or responsibilities should go to whom and how they would like it to happen. Prioritize items based on ease, importance, and ability, and then start doing them. Review in six months to evaluate the longer-term impact of my performance and role in leadership versus our expectations. Significance progress looks like my team would notice the change in the work I do personally and their shift in workload. They would likely have to empower their people more, passing on the next level of work,

so that they could absorb what I give them. I believe they would feel more important and more trusted. My team would see my contribution toward longer-term planning increase, giving them more confidence that we have a direction and are paying attention to staying on the course. Success looks like, I would be able to clearly identify every item that comes up as something I should do, or if it should be delegated, to whom it should go and how. My team would become so comfortable taking on larger responsibilities that work would start going directly to them, releasing me from the need to delegate at all. I would have at my fingertips the pulse of the market, our plan of attack, and our performance at a market level at any

moment. If we want to achieve our goals and make change alas, all the research says that we need to do exactly this. We need to have a goal and then really break it down into steps about how we are going to do this. And the Stoics, of course, always said this. It's not the end goal, but the process. How we get there, that's in our control. That's something that we really need to pay attention to. And I've spoken before on the podcast about how important it is to not just have a vision of what could go right, but also to plan what could go wrong, what could trip us up. The Stoics did this. And it's also what researchers say now is essential to maintaining our commitments to staying focused, to staying motivated. When we just have the grand, beautiful vision, science says that we kind of rest on our laurels.

We get so in love with that idea that we're like, you know what, I'm kind of good right now. I'm just going to have this beautiful vision and kind of live vicariously through that. Whereas if we actually make a plan and steps and then envision what could go wrong, that keeps up on the path of moving forward. Kikin and Leahy's work shines a light on how we're getting in our own way. Our actions are often a result of unhelpful assumptions. The ancient Stoics already knew this and dedicated themselves to thinking better, more rational thoughts.

If you want to start following through on your commitments to yourself this year, make time this week to answer some of the questions posed on this episode. Fill in your own immunity map. Conduct experiments. Challenge yourself. Stoics believe it's important to cut out distractions and have clear goals that help us live according to our values. What's most important, though, is to fulfill our purpose by living with Aratei, personal excellence, and to do so with wisdom and courage and justice and moderation, the four cardinal virtues.

We focus on our effort, what we control, and we know that the final result is out of our control. We do our best. We concentrate on what is up to us along the way. and we don't attach our self-worth to the outcome. What is something you learned in this episode about maintaining your commitments to yourself? Put it into practice and share this idea with others. That is the best way to make new ideas stick. This year, I wish you peace, happiness, and a rational and resilient mind that helps you

keep your commitments to yourself and to other people. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet. with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.