Are you ready for change?

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Adam Fleming, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

There are a variety of things you may feel ready for right now: a new job or promotion; a new or improved romantic relationship; and better health are tops on many peoples’ lists of things to change. There are probably also some changes you’d prefer NOT to make. For example, when my wife got rear-ended last fall, it would have been my preference not to change the family van, but circumstances outside my control dictated that change had to be made!
Chances are that you’ve had times in the past where change went well, and times when you didn’t sustain it to completion of a goal. Maybe you tried to quit smoking, or tried to be proactive about exercise. Maybe you sought a romantic relationship but when eventually it fizzled, you weren’t even sure why. A lot of these things happen not because we’re not ready, but sometimes because we don’t have the “change fitness” necessary to see them through. Imagine someone trying to run a marathon who has only been working out for a week! They may have decided they’re ready, and they’re certainly eager to do it, but there’s a good chance they won’t be able to continue past mile three and see that marathon through to the end. Some changes are like a marathon, and require us to boost our level of fitness, psychologically, so that once we begin, we are resilient enough to complete what we’ve started. Additionally, having greater change fitness means that those fender-benders won’t rock your world quite so much. This all sounds great, but how do you get change fit? At The Change Gym, we use a program developed by Dr. Steve Barlow of New South Wales in Australia. Dr. Barlow developed his program after noticing that 70% of attempts at organizational change management were failures. The program uses a mixture of instruction, journal exercises based in positive and narrative psychology, and one-on-one coaching sessions. Using a before-and-after assessment tool, we’ve shown that people who consistently and deeply engage the Personal Change Fitness Program who take the assessment show improved results, just as anyone who consistently goes to a gym to run on a treadmill for 3 months will show improved stamina. If you’d like to increase your capacity for managing change in your professional and personal life, or even if you’re just curious to take the assessment, talk to me today.
One final note: assessments over time show that coaches as a group are no more or less change fit than the general population! The Personal Change Fitness Program is a great way for a coach to improve personally, and there are ICF CCEU’s available for coaches who are interested in becoming facilitators, too! Even for coaches, the PCFP can be a difference maker!