Change Management: We Aren’t Creating A Future…We’re Recreating A Past

Have you noticed that history repeats itself? Have you noticed that today’s news is exactly the same as the news from 100 years ago? The settings for the stories have changed, but the stories are the same: What’s happening in the latest war? What scandal is grabbing our attention? How’s the economy doing?

On a personal basis, are you in a relationship where you are in conflicts that never gets resolved? Are you in a job that has grown boring because nothing ever changes? Or are you in a job where change is constant but you’re unhappy because you look into the future and can’t see how things will ever change? Have you noticed that life isn’t quite as exciting today as it was when you were 7 and hated to go to bed and couldn’t wait to wake up?

Why does our human history and our personal history keep repeating itself? It’s because we don’t really create a new future. We simply repeat the past and call that the future. Instead of creating a new future, we recreate a past that has already happened and call that the future.

Consider these decisions from the past that create our behavior in the future: We didn’t like spinach in the past, so we decide to never eat spinach again in the future. We didn’t like a ballet we went to, so we decide we’ll never go to another one in the future. We’ve been on diets, lost weight and put it on again, so we decide we’re never going to go through that frustration again in the future.  We trusted someone in the past and got burned, so we decide we’ll never trust again in the future. We resisted change in the past so we resist change in the future as well.

Change, by definition, occurs in the future. But what evidence do we tend to use to decide what to do in the future?  Don’t we, in fact, tend to look for evidence from the past and then make decisions about how we’ll behave in the future?

We look to our past experience, project that experience out into the future and imagine that the future will be just like the past. And, guess what? It usually is. In fact, the future can’t be anything other than some variation of the past. We’ve created that future by predicting it from our past. Case closed!

Now you know why history keeps repeating itself. Organizations often create futures (called “strategies”) based on the past and then live into that past...not the future. Individuals create futures (called “visions” or “dreams”) based on the past and then live into that past…not the future.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: We create a future based on our past and then wonder why the past is just like the future.

But to create a truly new future we have to let go of the past. It no longer exists. But we also have to recognize that the future doesn’t yet exist either. We can look back and see that we’ve created our past. What’s not as obvious to us is that we’ve already created our future by filling it up with so much of our past.

You know why the saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” is a cliché? Because it’s so obviously accurate. But today won’t be the first day of the rest of your life is it’s already filled up with what you did yesterday.

Today, when you create your to do list, really create it. Not from your past, but from what you choose for your future.

Presentation Skills Rulebook: “Anxiety Isn’t ‘Out There,’ It’s ‘In Here’

A friend of mine produces horror movies, one of which is called, “There’s something out there.” However, when it comes to delivering a presentation, I beg to differ:  There's nothing "out there." It's all "in here."

I was on the phone with Jolene, a woman I had worked with on her presentation skills. I had been hired to help her overcome her anxiety whenever she was asked to express herself in a meeting or in a presentation. I asked her how she was doing.

“It’s getting better,” she said.

That statement, I told her, contains the explanation for why she is anxious.

Who is this “it” I asked, “That is getting better?” Jolene’s statement suggests that anxiety is an "it" that one catches like a cold. Other people I’ve worked with will echo Jolene’s comment by saying, “I got scared” as though scared was running around the room and “got” them. Still others will say that someone in the audience “made” them anxious as though an audience member held a gun and forced the person to become anxious or else.

The key to handling our anxiety is to get in touch with reality. In reality, there is no “it” getting better. In reality, there is no “scared” trying to catch us. In reality, there is no audience “making” us nervous.

In reality, there is nothing “out there”…except what we put there. If we imagine that our audience is hostile, that hostility doesn’t exist in the audience. That thought exists in us and we find evidence to confirm it “out there.” If we imagine that the audience doesn’t like us, that thought doesn’t exist in the audience, that thought exists in us and we find evidence to confirm it. If we imagine that we won’t be able to close a sale, that thought doesn’t exist in the audience, that thought exists in us and we find evidence to confirm it.

You can see this even more clearly when calling someone on the phone. As you’re about to call, notice the thoughts that are in your head about how the other person will respond when he or she answers. Whatever thought is there is clearly your fantasy, not reality.

In reality,

there is nothing between us and our audience except what we put there. I encourage people to repeat this statement many times until it becomes ingrained in their brains which is exactly how “I got scared” was implanted there in the first place.

A rut gets created in the road when many cars pass over it. Similarly, a “rut” gets created in our brains (called “neural pathways”) when we tell ourselves something over and over again. Sometimes, it only takes one such experience if the experience is sufficiently traumatic.

Anxiety is produced when fantasy trumps reality. Anxiety is created by our imaginings and our imaginings aren’t real because between us and the audience there is, in reality, nothing except what we put there.