Resistance; Friend or Foe?

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

resistance, navigate, people, organization, experiencing, change, open, inquiry, dialogue, person, challenge, create, rat race, goal, overcome, book, resisting, idea, reboot, rat

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Change is inevitable, but personal growth is a choice. And a very wise person said that Bob Proctor, how we approach change will determine how we experience it in our own minds and in the reaction and response that we get from others. So today we're going to be talking about reframing the idea of resistance to change. So that we can pivot our mindset and create some amazing results in our own personal lives and in our organizations.

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The following was recorded in front of a live studio audience at the studio 21 podcast cafe. This is the United Podcast Network.

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Welcome to rat race reboot. I'm your host, Laura Noel. And as a certified coach and former 27 year military leader, each week, I provide bite sized mindset pivots that will help you reset your mind reawaken your spirit and regain your control. Welcome back, everyone, I am loving this topic, the idea of resistance to change. I've been in the field of leadership development for many years and organizational development. And one of the common things that we talk about in this industry is resistance to change. And it's often looked at as a negative thing, something that we need to overcome if we want to advance our goals or instill change within an organization or even within ourselves. And I was recently reading a book by Aaron Anderson, it's his book engaging resistance, how ordinary people successfully champion change. And it got me to rethink how I think about change. And then he talks about how people promote typically, resistance to change, it's seen as something that's positive or negative, either contributing members to the organization and people who resist it, or depending on one's point of view, it changes with their perspective and how they see that person, whether they're a troublemaker or whether they're adding value to the change process in and of itself. And I liked that. He says, just as we need gravity to stand, we need resistance to survive organizationally. And I never thought of reframing resistance to change as something positive, I just always might, you know, I got caught up in this belief too. I always saw it as something that needed to be overcome, or we, you know, we needed to get that person to change their point of view, like it was a negative thing. But if we're open to navigating through resistance to change, instead of seeing it as something that we have to overcome, that can open us up to a whole new level of possibilities.

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It's not something that we need to prevent, or stop from happening. It's something that we can learn to embrace. And when we do that, again, we open ourselves up to ideas and possibilities that we never would have thought of on our own operating in a vacuum. So and if you think about it, you know, there's a multibillion dollar industry focused on overcoming resistance to change. That's how prevalent it is. But I think about resistance in the context of first and foremost as us as individuals, when we learn how to navigate through resistance, as an individual, we can help teams and people in our organization or other people navigate through resistance if we're kind of coming together in a collective purpose or an idea or trying to institute something new. So how we deal with resistance, when we're setting large enough goals will determine the outcome. And so think about this. The problem is, most people want they don't they're not setting the right goals, they're not really clear on how to do that. And they don't understand how to navigate through resistance. They're simply trying to avoid it. And ultimately what can happen is when they're setting a goal that is worthy of them setting this worthy ideal, and they're moving toward that goal and they start to experience the feelings of resistance within themselves. Oftentimes, they'll revert back to safety. Oh, this doesn't feel right, and they won't push through that resistance. But I'm telling you, once you learn to navigate through this, you're not only going to be able to help yourself If you're going to be able to much more effectively deal with resistance to change in your organization, in your household with other people in conflict. So first, we need to change our language around the idea of dealing with resistance. We're not overcoming resistance, we're navigating through it. And so you might have some resistance with that idea in and of itself. And that's okay, I acknowledge it, right. But first, we have to learn how to change that language, and then deal with the resistance within ourselves first, okay. So first, you want to get that resistance and those feelings of resistance outside of you. And this is how you start to use and lean on some of your mental faculties that you've if you've been listening to me for a while I talk about quite often, one of those mental faculties is your perception. So you want to get these challenges or obstacles outside of you and onto a piece of paper. Because these challenges are not you,

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you have challenges. And that's why it's so important to go through this exercise of getting them outside of you so that you can see you your whole self as the whole person and not just as as narrowly focused problem or challenge that you're having resistance to. And then I want you to ask yourself some questions and write the answers down. And so now you're using another one of your mental faculties, your reasoning faculty. And this would be really helpful for you, if you didn't listen to the episode on mental house cleaning or housekeeping. This would be a good episode for you to listen to, and then come back to this. But ask yourself, what am i Believing right now? About this situation? What am I resisting? Truly? And do I want to continue believing this? What am I fearful of? When it comes to taking this path or navigating this way? Or getting to this level? Or, you know, potentially experiencing this change? What am I really fearful of you're shining the light of awareness, and you're using the power of inquiry to just get a little bit deeper? Do I want to believe this anymore? Is this going to help me advance this goal? What am I fearful of? And what are my concerns, truly getting them out on paper and addressing them? And then using your reasoning faculty? To ask myself, Am I willing to work through these fears or concerns? And what's the worst that could happen? If I do. But I don't want you to stop there. I want you to ask yourself, if this goal progression in this path continues, or if this change continues? What's the best that could happen? If I navigated through all these obstacles and this resistance that I'm feeling right now, often that resistance is based on fear. It's based in what you are potentially losing. Sometimes we're losing an old belief system or an old way of doing things, right. But what we have to gain is so much greater than that. So even just asking the question can just open you up to realizing Wow, well, the gain is so much greater than the potential losses, am I willing to navigate through this? So get that out on paper? And now, what do I feel inspired to do with this new knowledge, and then take at least one action step, you're creating new neural pathways in the direction of this new belief in this place that you're going. So once you get into a rhythm with whenever you experience resistance, and kind of navigating through it and teaching yourself to navigate through and I also recommend, you know, working with a coach who can help you navigate through this, it's a coach can compress time, and help you navigate it much quicker. So I always recommend that you can always contact me. But if you have somebody else, a mentor, somebody that you connect with who's doing some of the things that you already want to be doing, then connect with them but find a mentor or a coach to help you navigate this. You don't have to do it alone. But then you're ready to to do this with teams or with people where you have conflict and the principles are very much the same. So using the same questions as a guide, you can practice the power of of inquiry. But again, the first step is in seeing the other party or the other group or the other person, as people with needs, challenges and objectives. Just as I had you get your mind right with yourself, you are not the problem, you are not the challenge, you are not the resistance, you are a person who is experiencing a problem or a challenge or some resistance. It's not you. So when you're experiencing another party who was resisting something that you want to do, or a change you want to implement, it's not a person, it's not a person as a problem. It's not a department as a problem. It's a person, it's a department. It's an organization, it's a team, who is experiencing a challenge or a question, or they have some things that are being unanswered, they have needs, challenges and objectives, just like you do. So get that right in your mind first, and then proceed with the inquiry, then you can invite some dialogue, I would recommend also bringing in if you're not really well versed in this, bring in a coach or a consultant who can help you navigate the terrain. And again, if this is something that you're interested in doing, and you're resonating with what I'm saying, connect with me on rat race reboot.com. And let's get into a dialogue and have a conversation on what that might look like. But, you know, ask the other party, what are your concerns? If this idea proceeds as planned, if this change that I really want to implement? What are your concerns, if it really happens, and we follow through with it? And asking, and it really, you have to develop trust, but in even in doing this, you're going to develop a high level of trust within that team or within that, that dialogue you're having with that person. But what are you afraid of losing or gaining, you know, sometimes,

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we can be afraid of mission creep, right? When there's change or restructuring within an organization. Oftentimes, what I hear is people are afraid of kind of getting dumped on with more workload that doesn't belong to them or didn't belong to them before. And their role is changing. And they're afraid of losing some of their time. And, you know, that's, that's a valid fear. So what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of losing or gaining, and even humble inquiry, I always talk about this. And I learned that from the book helping Edgar Schein that was very eye opening for me, what am I not seeing? Because we can only go as far as our own level of awareness will take us. And if we don't have the stakeholders involved in the dialogue and the conversation, inevitably, they're going to be things that we don't see, we can't possibly see everything. So what can that what that can do for you is it can open a rich dialogue, for you to learn some things that you may not have been aware of. It's opening the door for you to establish trust. People on the other side, feel seen, and they feel heard. And you might find that when those other individuals or those teams truly feel seen and heard, and they become a part of the solution, you might even find that they don't need anything else. Oh, okay, well, you know what I think I think we can work around that. Or maybe they have a simple ask, that doesn't impact the end result that you want to achieve. And it's something really simple that you can offer to them, and it just means the world to them. And then you'll have full buy in so seeing people as people opening the conversation up. So you can have this rich dialogue and learn things that you may not have known before, previously, can not only open the doors for new possibilities, but it can also help you avoid a disaster again, because you can't know and you can't see everything. I like to say you're either gonna pay now or you're gonna pay later. And so taking a little bit of time in the beginning to to find out well, why why are you against this change? Or are you against this change? Or is it an aspect of this change that you don't agree with? What is that what is that about? What what would be a better way or how could we both

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you know, get through this change? happy and feel feeling heard or feeling like it's a win win, you know, doing that taking that time upfront, will help you kind of navigate or kind of mitigate the corrections you'll have to do later. If you don't listen to people and you think you know better, and you're trying to navigate this through this change by yourself, and you're trying to overcome resistance and get around it without really working through it, you're going to pay later anyway. And you're probably going to spend much more time and money later redoing and correcting and revisiting. So it makes more sense to open up this dialogue in the beginning. And it all starts with you reframing the word resistance and not seeing it as necessarily a negative thing. But asking yourself, How can this be a positive thing? How can I learn from this? How can we grow together through this resistance? And how can we navigate through it, you're going to have a much stronger team. And you're going to develop a lot more confidence within your own abilities as a leader of self and a leader of others. So I hope this has been helpful for you. If you want to have a conversation about your unique situation or unique challenge that you're dealing with, either by in your own goals or with your organization, I encourage you to go to rat race reboot.com and just send me a message, I would love to get on a call with you and have a quick chat to see if there's a way to navigate through this together. As always go to rat race reboot.com Anyway, and leave a five star review or your comments on whatever channel you listen to your podcasts on, I would love to hear them and I read them. And also subscribe because my book is coming out rat race reboot. And I'm super excited just finished the last two chapters, it's with my editor right now. And I don't want you to miss out on anything. So subscribe so that you can get updates about the book. Alright, so we are going to end today's episode the way we always end and it's in the idea of taking inspired action. And this is about getting clarity on what you want to create. So think about maybe a challenge that you're dealing with, and maybe some resistance to change that you might be experiencing within yourself or with another person or another team or organization and I want you to imagine that this resistance no longer exist and you are all operating together wonderfully beautifully. Working together toward a common goal and a common vision. And it just feels good it feels right everyone has a voice everyone feels seen and heard. And guess what? You're still making it happen. And it's better than you could have ever imagined what does that circumstance look like? You've already navigated through any resistance that you were experiencing and you're on the other side things are flowing along to your liking you've arrived what does that situation or scenario look like in its ideal form? How does it feel being new right now in the midst of it all

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and start to bring into focus the people surrounding you and how the vision you have is impacting others. See them risk Responding to you in a favorable way

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you are showing up as the leader you know you can be What are you inspired to do right now and as ideas float to the top of your mind, just write them down and be ready to take inspired action.

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I want to thank you again for sticking with us for another episode of rat race reboot. Again, go to rat race reboot.com Leave your comments on whatever platform you listen to your podcasts on. We'd love to hear them leave a five star review. And don't forget to subscribe on rat race reboot.com So you can get updates on my latest book. But until then, remember, everything is created twice, first in your imagination, and then in physical form. We'll see you next week.

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The views and opinions expressed by the hosts guests or callers of this program do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the studio 21 podcast cafe, the United Podcast Network, its partners or affiliates.