New Years’ Resolutions are easy enough to make but hard to keep over time. We begin with commitment and enthusiasm to change a habit that is important to us. But our brains… and our muscles… and our psyches… default to the old patterns very soon! Before we know it, we are back on the old road of complacency and discouragement.
I had a friend, Sarah, who resolved to have more meaningful conversations with others. She devised three simple ideas to practice consistently in order to elicit higher quality conversations with family members and colleagues.
- When her teen daughter would say, “It was good” (can you hear the flat voice tone?) or “She’s nice,” Sarah would push for more details. “What made it ‘good’?” or “What specifically makes her ‘nice’?” Suddenly her daughter had to do more thinking and be less automatic in her response.
- When her colleagues would ask for Sarah’s advice about a situation, she would first ask what they were thinking BEFORE offering her own ideas. She would say, “So what are you thinking about doing?” This allowed her to build on their ideas before plunging in with her own (brilliant!) thinking.
- In conversations with her friends, Sarah would listen to identify core values implicit in their stories and name those values while she paraphrased what they said. For example, her friend was ranting about her children who were showing a bad attitude about some Christmas gifts they received. Sarah’s response to the friend was, “It’s really important to you that your children show appreciation and gratitude even if the gift itself misses the mark.” This opened a whole dialogue about the value that the friend was trying to inspire in her children.
If you are like Sarah and have an important resolution you want to stick with, then do what she did.
- Focus on what you want to do, rather than on what you don’t want to do.
- Create frames for situations that frequently occur which will easily move you into practicing the new skill.
- Always be on the lookout for situations where you can use one of the frames. This gives you lots of practice in the new skill.
Best wishes for 2015 as you practice those new habits of mind!
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