Discussion of Step 8:

I explore alternative behaviors and rehearse them in safe settings.

So here we are very much in the thick of the step-by-step approach to changing questionable behavior patterns. By now, you have much more understanding of why it’s not a “Just Do It” attitude. We’re talking about patterns of behavior that have risen to cope with something overwhelming.

“Overwhelming” means it’s happening at a gut level. To make changes that are effective and sustainable, you have to go slowly. Not slowly for the sake of going slowly, but to be able to address the problem that caused the avoidance and coping behavior. So in this step, you are not yet about making any changes in real life. You are exploring and practicing possible changes in the privacy of your mind. That is, not with the intensity that is involved in interacting with others.

Baby steps are not just for babies

You might think that this is too much of a baby step. Well, it helps if you put it in perspective. Just look, for instance, at boxers. Practice in boxing is not limited to fighting. It involves using a punching ball. You also practice improving your form.

In martial arts, judo, karate, Aiki-Do, people spend a lot of time learning the movements slowly and deliberately. They practice the form in addition to doing practice fights. And all of this practice is not just for beginners. Even extremely advanced martial artists do that.

There is something similar in golf. Training does not just involve playing golf. You also practice the movement, the swing, and visualize how to do it. These should be mindful movements. To learn them better, it helps to practice them without the stress of the actual game, the pressure of performance.

A practical example

So let’s take a simple example. Let’s say that the behavior pattern you want to change is what happens when you’re at work, and people ask you to do something. Part of it is, they are asking you to do something, and how you manage that. Another part of it is the interruption.

When you think about it, you notice is that you tend to either be too accommodating and say yes, or you are irritable or negative or angry when people ask. You let people interrupt whatever you’re doing, you accept to take on more, and you end up feeling overwhelmed. You take on more than you can handle, even if that is listening to somebody else’s problems when you don’t have time for that. Being too accommodating, or being negative and angry, doesn’t work well for you (and others).

You’ve already paid attention to what emotional logic was involved in that. You’ve already got a sense of the level of pressure and fear that it brings up for you. So you understand why your automatic answers are what they are. And now you’re brainstorming some ways in which you can respond to people differently. To do that, you look back at past situations. What happened today? Last week?  What other moments do you remember? In Step 8, you look at them, not in terms of understanding why, but in terms of seeing how you could have done something differently.

Do you have a minute?

And so you remember an interaction with, say, Tom last week. He popped into your office, or your cubicle, and said: “Do you have a minute?” Reflexively, you said yes. But you did not have a minute. You were in the middle of something essential to you. And when you were listening to Tom explain whatever he wanted to tell you, you were in a state of inner frenzy, all tied up in knots because you were not able to hear him. You were still thinking about what you needed to do. And so you were really between two chairs, neither in one nor in the other.

So in the brainstorming part, you rewind to the moment when Tom said: “Do you have a minute?