Act "as if"

In my newsletter I often bring up ideas of things you can do differently to make your relationships work better. That means making changes to your own behavior. After all, the only person you can change is yourself.

But change is hard and it feels uncomfortable. I’ve been given the advice to do it anyway, even if it feels weird, but that didn’t quite make sense to me until I was told the four stages of change:

• Unconscious incompetence: This is when you are doing something that isn’t working but you aren’t aware of it.

• Conscious incompetence: This is when you become aware of that unproductive behavior, but you keep doing it! Darn! Feels frustrating and terrible.

• Conscious competence: This is when you try out a new behavior and it feels weird. This is where “Act as if” come in. Yes, it will feel weird, but you are practicing a new behavior.

• Unconscious competence: After you have practiced enough, it will start to feel normal and natural. You will be amazed at the things that you can do this way!