Change or Die

From Fast Company comes The Three Keys to Change, an excerpt from Alan Deutschman's new book  Change or Die

This isn't a another self-help book, but a serious explanation why people don't or can't change, why heart attack victims don't take their medicines or why prisoners once released commit crimes again and go back to prison.

Why is it so hard to change?

Facts don't seem to help.
Fear doesn't either.
Few can change and transform themselves on their own.

Alan writes the keys to change are relate, repeat and reframe.

The first key - Relate

You form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope....you need the influence of seemingly "unreasonable" people to restore your hope--to make you believe that you can change and expect that you will change.

The second key - Repeat

The new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills that you'll need. It takes a lot of repetition over time before new patterns of behavior become automatic and seem natural--until you act the new way without even thinking about it. It helps tremendously to have a good teacher, coach, or mentor to give you guidance, encouragement, and direction along the way.

The third key - Reframe

The new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about your situation and your life. Ultimately, you look at the world in a way that would have been so foreign to you that it wouldn't have made any sense before you changed.

New hope, new skills, new thinking.

Robert Paterson calls it a revelatory book with the key to change to be found in the human heart.

Alan has reviewed the vast body of literature on what works in therapy to help people confront and then move through their belief barriers to a better life. There seems to be many different approaches that work. One on one. Groups etc. But the one thing that the successful paths had in common was a person who truly, sincerely believed in the capability of the other to make the change. This open hearted person often knew this before the subject did. The magic that crossed over was that truth of the feeling that this person loves me for whom I am now in all my misery. He loves me for me now not for what I should be. He sees in me the person that I can and could be. He gives me the gift of hope.

I would add only that the change in the heart takes place only in relationship, be it another person like a football coach, a group like AA or God.  In that relationship you are not only loved for who you are,  you are given the support to become what you can be.