One large cup of forgiveness:
Be kind to yourself, you have done some reflection and have decided to make some changes - that is an essential first step.
Two cups of further reflection:
Identify what is stopping you from turning your intention into reality. Is your list too long? Can you shorten it to no more than three things? What are you assuming about your desired action? Is that assumption correct?
One schedule:
Develop an action plan in order to create a habit. For example, Michael is a leader who is fast paced and action oriented; who likes to run efficient meetings, and get things done. Recently he noticed his team were not giving the creative input he expected from them at meetings, and when talking this through with his coach, discovered that his behaviour of speaking 80% of the time at meetings might be inhibiting the contribution of others. It was not Michael’s intention to dominate, but the way he managed the meeting agenda had this effect. So Michael decided to change, and be less dominant, however old habits die hard, and he found this extremely difficult to execute. So intention wasn’t sufficient in itself to effect the change; he then made a simple plan that he would not speak until at least three team members had spoken first. This was hugely frustrating for him at first, (and surprising for the team) but the end result for him is a more engaged team and sometimes slightly longer meetings.
Three cups of patience:
Behaviour change is hard, and setbacks will occur. In the beginning there are as many steps backward as forward. The key is to remember why the change was important to you in the first place.
One spoonful of plan tweaking:
If the plan needs adjustment, do it.
One spoonful of support:
Because change is hard, doing it alone can be tricky, sometimes it is necessary to seek the support of others. Your colleagues, family or a one to one coaching arrangement can make a huge difference in helping you stay on track.
