Changing Both My Minds

Before I begin, I want you to know that I am not whining – I’m scientifically observing my own resistance to change.

I recently committed to writing something every day – a blog post, a newsletter piece, or an article. This is in addition to beginning the writing of my new book, the sequel to Choosing to Be. Naturally I find myself getting distracted by the many other things that need doing, and often the day slips by with nary a word on paper or screen.

As I explore my lack of results I realize that I am still pushing myself to do this – there is no pull, no vision of who I will be, how I will feel, when I actually am able to write on a daily basis.

I haven’t figured out how to change the way I think about this and set myself up for success. I don’t carry around a little notebook to jot down ideas as they come to me. I don’t set aside a time each day to do my daily posting to one of my blogs. And now that I know I can postdate a post, I’ve found a loophole – and I have enlarged that loophole from two days without posting to three days, then backdating the posts.

It’s amusing that I’m struggling so with this change to become a daily blogger. After all, I wrote a book on change in the early 90’s, and developed a change model that still holds true today. My model was based on work by Roger Gould, who wrote Transformations, and William Bridges, author of Transitions, on how to succeed at making changes in your life.

At the time I was consulting with companies on how to implement widespread structural changes or new corporate-wide systems. What I learned about change was that no matter how many people were impacted by corporate change, it was for each of them a quite personal matter. The problem, and the reason for the failure of many costly change implementations, was that often the people trying to implement the change didn’t think much about the people involved.

I smiled as I wrote that last sentence, because I suddenly had this image of me as a giant corporation deciding that I should become a daily blogger, without considering the personal implications for me, the person who has to make the change. Perhaps my corporate mind should spend a little time exploring the implications for the little person who has to actually do the work.

Hmmm, I’m beginning to see why this becoming a daily blogger is so difficult. My big corporate self is telling my little writer self to “get with the program” – after all, my corporate self has goals, big ideas, worlds to conquer. Meanwhile my little writer self, who has always had to take a back seat to my corporate self, is really pissed off. Once again, my creative abilities are not being respected. Feels just like all those years I had to spend writing corporate stuff instead of poetry or books about talking cats.

I am trying to find interesting things to write about, views with a twist, imaginative observations. But I’m not used to doing this on a daily basis, not used to keeping track of all my ideas, and then when it is time to write, sometimes my mind looks like a big stretch of Antarctica, completely white and devoid of any living forms.

So like all the “little people,” I’m pushing back at the big corporate mind dictating this change, finding reasons not to do it, problems that get in the way, subtle passive resistance that makes the big corporate mind pull her hair out. “Who cares,” I pout, crossing my arms and stamping my foot. “After all, what has she ever done for me?”

“Well,” my corporate mind replies, “I did give you this idea about exploring your resistance to change, didn’t I? And, I’m showing you right here that you can do one of your favorite things — you can write dialogue even in a blog. So why not open up that creative mind of yours and have some fun?”

I suspect a trick, but I do have to admit that her idea of digging deeper into my resistance as an actual blog post was pretty cool. And I do love writing dialogue.

“Okay,” I reply grudgingly, “I admit I’ve been dragging my feet. Maybe you’re on to something. As long as you promise that I can exercise my creative freedom however I see fit, I’ll do it.”

“That’s lovely. I just know you are going to like what comes of this. Trust me, I know what’s best for you,” she says with that knowing smile I’ve learned to hate.

But, what the heck, I know how to postdate my blog posts, so I can still play her game in my own devious little way — just like all the little people have been doing for centuries.

Tagged as: Change