Here are the three most important pitfalls and success factors we’ve discovered. Our research shows that these three elements can make you and your loved ones ten times more likely to succeed.
Mistake #1: We attack people with information.
We assume that, if the person only knew what we knew, they’d change. The problem is, often they already know what we know, plus more.
.. Solution: People need to examine their own narrative.
When you’re trying to influence people who need motivation, but not information, don’t offer more information. Instead, work to create a safe environment where they can explore motivations they already have. People need to re-examine their narrative, especially any self-defeating or clever stories they are telling themselves to justify the status quo.
- “What is it that makes you even consider changing?”
- “If things worked out exactly the way you want, what would be different?
- “What are the pluses and minuses of changing or not changing?”
- “If this change were easy, would you want to make it? What makes it hard?”
Mistake #2: We fail to see why we’re stuck.
Getting someone to make a commitment to change is not the same as getting them to actually change. The problem is that people overestimate the power of their own willpower. They fail to see the risks in front of them. So, they put their heart and soul into an effort, but it’s not enough. They are tripped up by obstacles they never anticipated.
We need to recognize the hidden influences around us, the influences that are keeping us stuck. Once we see them, we can deal with them. We group influences into six sources: three that motivate and three that enable.
- Personal Motivation ..
- Social Motivation ..
- Structural Motivation ..
- Personal Ability ..
- Social Ability ..
- Structural Ability ..
Most stubborn problems persist because of unseen or overlooked influences that are keeping us stuck. Once we see them, we can change them. However, if we don’t change them, we’ll remain stuck.
.. Another mistake is to have favorite solutions, and to use them in isolation. For example, we assume carrots and sticks will solve every problem, or that training or technology will. As a result, we create one-sided solutions that address only a few of the obstacles that are keeping us stuck.
Richard Rohr Meditation: The Root of Violence
The root of violence is the illusion of separation—from God, from Being itself, from being one with everyone and everything. When you don’t know you are connected and one, you will invariably resort to some form of violence to get the dignity and power you lack.
.. When you can become little enough, naked enough, and honest enough, then you will ironically find that you are more than enough. At this place of poverty and freedom, you have nothing to prove and nothing to protect. Here you can connect with everything and everyone. Everything belongs. This cuts violence at its very roots before there is even a basis for fear or greed—the things that usually cause us to be angry, suspicious, and violent.
.. To be clear, it is inconceivable that a true believer would be racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, homophobic, or bigoted toward any group or individual, especially toward the poor, which seems to be an acceptable American prejudice. In order to end the cycle of violence, our fight must flow from our authentic identity as Love.
.. I founded the Center for Action and Contemplation thirty years ago was to give activists some grounding in spirituality so they could continue working for social change, but from a stance much different than vengeance, ideology, or willpower pressing against willpower.
Most activists I knew loved Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s teachings on nonviolence. But it became clear to me that many of them had only an intellectual appreciation rather than a participation in the much deeper mystery. I often saw people on the Left playing the victim and creating victims of others who were not like them. The ego was still in charge. It was still a power game, not the science of love that Jesus taught us.
.. It takes a lifetime, I think. This kind of action, rooted in one’s True Self, comes from a deeper knowing of what is real, good, true, and beautiful, beyond labels and dualistic judgments of right or wrong. From this place, our energy is positive and has the most potential to create change for the good. This stance is precisely what we mean by “being in prayer.” We must pray “unceasingly” to maintain this posture.
.. Wait in prayer, but don’t wait for absolutely perfect motivation or we will never act. Radical union with God and neighbor is our starting place, not private perfection. Contemplation offers a way to make our action sustainable and lasting over the long haul, without being overly defended or cynical.