{"id":6734,"date":"2017-12-18T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T21:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.empoweringambitiouswomen.com\/?p=6734"},"modified":"2018-05-14T12:21:54","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T02:21:54","slug":"making-a-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.empoweringambitiouswomen.com\/making-a-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Change: 3 Things You’re Forgetting to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making a Change.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

So, you\u2019re making a change, perhaps in your business, your team, or your own leadership behaviour. You\u2019ve thought it through, you can almost touch the wonderful outcomes this change is going to produce. You know that you can expect some resistance, but you\u2019re clear on what needs to happen and why, so you should be able to overcome any barriers.<\/p>\n

And then you get to it. Things are fine for a short while and you can see some changes taking shape.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a few months: looking back you realise nothing much has changed at all. How can that be, after such a promising start?<\/p>\n

Change in itself is not necessarily hard \u2013 we all make changes successfully. But we often don\u2019t really know what it is we did that was so successful.<\/p>\n

There is no fixed recipe for successful change, but there are 3 key things most people forget to do, that dramatically increase the likelihood of a change being successful.<\/p>\n

Analyse the environment<\/h3>\n

When change is not successful we too often assume that it is because of a controllable factor, such as lack of motivation, willpower or self-discipline. We don\u2019t give enough \u2018credit\u2019 to the environment we\u2019re meant to make the change in.<\/p>\n

You see, our environment is often structured in such a way that it makes the unwanted behaviour so much easier than the new behaviour.<\/p>\n

Let me illustrate: my mum visits me regularly from the Netherlands. She\u2019s in her 70s, and over the past 20 years or so she has gradually put on weight and it\u2019s making her uncomfortable. After her visit she almost always notices, with some surprise, that she\u2019s lost weight while she stayed with me. And then adds in the same breath: \u201cAnd you never have anything to eat in the house.\u201d. Which isn\u2019t completely true, but she\u2019s right about one thing: I don\u2019t buy snack food. Because I know that if I have it, I\u2019ll eat it! It\u2019s so much harder to resist eating <\/em>snacks when I know they\u2019re there \u2013 my environment is enabling that behaviour \u2013 than to resist buying<\/em> them when I\u2019m in the supermarket.<\/p>\n

Before you embark on any change:<\/h3>\n