Who Are You Meant to Be? (44 page)

1. Discomfort with initiating social contact. I tell myself I am too busy or wait until last minute to see how I feel—have my husband remind me each Monday.
   
2. Discomfort I feel when I share personal information about myself—be prepared with things I want to share.
   
3. Embarrassed to ask for help—Ask my daughter to help with gardening.
   

What I am going to do?
Record your approach to achieving your desired future state.

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How I am going to do it?
List specific activities you will do or experiences you will seek to develop your brain’s neural pathways.

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When I am going to do it
? Write down dates so you can monitor.

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Barriers I am likely to encounter.
Identify what will get in the way and how you can address when it happens.

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In Leisure

Identify changes in what you do in your leisure time, such as hobbies, interests you might pursue, or volunteer roles you might take on, that would increase the opportunity for you to get your predominant need met and shift from your SP System.

Here is an example:

What I am going to do?
Record your approach to achieving your desired future state.

Meet my Artist’s need to be creative through the hobbies I pursue.

How I am going to do it?
List specific activities you will do or experiences you will seek to develop your brain’s neural pathways.

1. Quit activities that don’t meet my need to be creative to free up time.
   
2. Sign up for the photography lessons I have always wanted.
   
3. Set aside a specific time each day to take pictures.
   
4. Learn Photoshop.
   

When I am going to do it
? Write down dates so you can monitor.

1. By end of week
   
2. By end of month
   
3. Today 15 min.; 45 min. by end of month
   

Barriers I am likely to encounter.
Identify what will get in the way and how you can address when it happens.

1. Feelings of guilt for taking time for myself to practice and take lessons—acceptance of this feeling.
   
2. Tell myself I am not very good so why bother—write down why I am doing it (to enjoy the art of photography, not to be good) and how it meets my need.
   

What I am going to do?
Record your approach to achieving your desired future state.

  1.

  2.

  3.

How I am going to do it?
List specific activities you will do or experiences you will seek to develop your brain’s neural pathways.

  1.

  2.

  3.

When I am going to do it
? Write down dates so you can monitor.

  1.

  2.

  3.

Barriers I am likely to encounter.
Identify what will get in the way and how you can address when it happens.

  1.

  2.

  3.

Planner Section 4: Sequence Your Specific Steps

What is the sequence of steps for me to complete my action plan?

How am I progressing against my plan?

In this section, you need to use your left emotional brain to create a sequence of activities that you will do during the following month. This will help break the activities down into smaller steps so that you can then take action. The form also provides you with the ability to monitor your progress against your plan, noting your achievements, any challenges you experience, and any other reflections you have as you work through the development process. Once completed, this form must be kept somewhere that you will see it regularly to remind yourself to follow through on the specific steps and to note your progress as you go. Remember, out of sight means out of mind when we are working to break long-standing patterns of behavior.

Using your plan from section 3, write down the steps you are going to take over the next week toward completing the “what” and “how” from your plan as well as any actions to address your barriers. Support your success by balancing out how challenging the activities are with how many you list. You will need to repeat this section each week until your goal is achieved.

Tips for Completing This Section Based on Your Predominant Style

Leader or Intellectual:
You may just want to move into action at this point, but you need to take the time to identify the steps that address each component of the plan in a detailed way. Resist the urge to skip planning around relationship and self-awareness activities, as having specific steps will make it easy for you to practice and strengthen the lines of communication to this part of your brain.

Performer or Visionary:
Dealing with detail is not your idea of a good time, so take your time when doing it, reviewing it once it’s done to see if you can think of anything you’ve missed. Or enlist the help of a Stabilizer to help you with the steps. While this level of detail can be an irritating activity for you, don’t skip over it or rationalize that you don’t need to do it to change, as it can prevent you from squandering your energy or giving up on your plan altogether.

Weekly Planner for:

Socializer or Artist:
You may need some assistance with working out the details and prioritizing the activities. You may find that your fears arise around losing or alienating people, so push past those and focus on the factual steps required, whether it is you working the plan or someone else.

Adventurer or Stabilizer:
This section will be relatively easy for you to complete given your talents for sequencing. Recording these activities may be an easier task for Stabilizers who love to plan and make lists. For Adventurers, this may be a little more difficult because you simply like to move into action, so be patient with the process of writing them down.

Step 3: Move to Action

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

—George Bernard Shaw

Now that you have developed your Roadmap to become who you are meant to be, it is time to move to action. Your Planner provides you with the sequence of steps to follow; however, you need to be prepared to maintain your momentum and avoid getting derailed at this step in the Roadmap. When establishing a new behavior pattern, the challenge arises because the existing pattern is physiological and the result of decades of reinforcement. This is why you can’t expect to read a book and change your brain, or go to a workshop and think that because you gained insight into why you do something, you’ll automatically be able to change it.

You need to prepare yourself to succeed. In this final step in the Roadmap, the focus is on supporting your success by managing your expectations of what you will experience, getting the support you require, and monitoring your progress so you can celebrate your wins. The activities in this step of the Roadmap ensure you are ready to move into action and are prepared to stay the course despite the resistance and setbacks you will naturally experience.

Prepare Yourself to Succeed

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

—William James

Before you even get started on the execution of your Planner, you need to know what to expect as you take action to develop and shift from your Self-Protective System in order to achieve your potential and become who you are meant to be.

Expect to struggle.
Most people give up after they experience frustration when their new behavior doesn’t get the results they expected or doesn’t happen as quickly as they thought it would. It’s just easier to give up and give in to the existing pattern than to keep struggling. Then you can phone a friend and talk about what a hard time you are having so that you can get some sympathy. Perhaps your friend will tell you not to bother because it’s too hard and let you off the hook. But that’s not really what you want; it’s just a habit. Many still hope that an epiphany will bring substantial change, but the truth is that stepping out of our comfort zone means that we are going to be uncomfortable. In other words, you can expect to experience feelings that will trigger your SP System, so just keep on working the new pattern anyway. Don’t pick up the phone and complain! You have to truly accept and believe that if you want to change your behavior, you have to change your brain. Repetition and reinforcement are the only ways to do this, so expect to struggle and recognize when you are so that you resist the impulse to simply give up on your plan.

Complaining adults are the same as whining children. Both expect someone else to kiss the boo-boo and take care of them.

—Anne Dranitsaris

Know what you have to give up.
Our brains are not supposed to stay stagnant and are actually predisposed to change and develop. By becoming self-aware and making our beliefs and patterns of behavior conscious, we can change automatic thoughts and reactions. New experiences create neural pathways that override the ones that were created by past experiences. However, we develop them only when we stop doing what we have always done and do something else. If we don’t give up the security of keeping things the same, we can’t build something new. If you want to be a kinder, more compassionate person, you have to give up bad-mouthing your ex. If you want to be an effective leader, you have to give up being “one of the boys.” You can’t get what you are striving for without giving something up. That something, in most cases, is an outdated belief or habit of mind or behavior that is no longer serving you. Be sure you know what you have to give up and notice when you are resisting doing so.

Be prepared for what you will feel and experience.
Behavioral change is possible no matter what age you are. But it’s not as easy as thinking you will do something different or changing a habit. Anyone who has tried to create a new routine—exercise, healthy eating, not yelling at his or her children—will attest to this. The intention is there, but the old pattern of behavior is still wired into the brain, so we just keep doing what we have always done in the past. Our emotional brain reflexively causes us to behave in ways that we sometimes can’t believe ourselves. We observe ourselves acting the way we were determined not to and feel helpless that we can’t do anything about it. The brain is simply wired to respond a certain way once psychological equilibrium has been set.

As much as a person will say that he or she loves change or exploring new things, the reality is that those things are probably not within the person’s comfort zone. For example, Adventurers may love new activities that give them the sought-after rush of sensation, but suggest a team-building session in which they can share their feelings, and they head for the hills! Socializers may love to travel to a country that others wouldn’t dream of, but suggest that they go to a silent meditation retreat and it brings their anxiety levels through the roof. Each of the Styles has a different fear that is activated when the person with that Style has to change or develop his or her brain. When we know what to expect, it makes it easier to trust the process and tolerate the emotions that naturally arise during the process.