Challenging beliefs to alter behaviour
01/06/2010, Author: Luigi Paiano
As the eagle eyed will notice, my ‘May’ blog comes to you in the unfamiliar chronological surrounds of ‘June’.
Yes.
It’s late.
But it is purposely so, because my topic for the month is all about challenging things that we do. In particular, I am challenging why I leave things until the last moment. Throughout my life, whether it was homework, research, projects or reports, I always left them until the deadline was upon me. And I KNOW I am not alone.
So, last week, as I settled myself down with a cup of tea to write the May blog, I got to thinking that here we are again, at the end of the month and I am only now giving thought to what I will write. Why didn’t I do it at the beginning or even the middle of May? What is it that makes me delay? And so it was that the topic was decided upon and I made a conscious decision to delay the post to highlight my point.
When I asked these questions of myself, I came up with a few reasons as to why I leave things late. There is probably a little of each one contributing to my behaviour…
- Because all of the blogs have come on the last day
- Because leaving things late has always worked for me
- Because I am always too busy so everything is left until the last minute really
- Because I work more efficiently if there is less time
- Because I make better decisions when I have time constraints
- Because I can’t stop procrastinating
- Because I like a bit of pressure
Now the thing is there may well be advantages to leaving things late, but sometimes it gets a bit too much and can have an impact on consequences. Stress levels, deadlines being missed or mistakes being made are examples of the downside.
If these consequences are to be avoided, I need to challenge these beliefs in order to propagate a change in my behaviour. It is essentially about challenging your attitudes or thoughts about something to alter the consequences. Many of you will recognise its roots in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - this method in particular is often called the ABC model.
I have a couple of examples:
To challenge my statement that I leave things late because all of the blogs have come on the last day:
This is just me hiding behind a pattern which I think is giving me time. I can break this simply by doing another blog in a couple of weeks. This would give me plenty of time to have it proof- read, sense-checked and also, importantly, posted on time.
Because I work more efficiently if there is less time:
I am forcing myself into doing this. Yes, it means I won’t procrastinate or delay over decisions, but at what cost? If I set out to complete a task earlier it might mean that I consult more widely or engage in more research, enabling me to add more quality or depth to my work.
Because I like a bit of pressure:
Oh really? I have always had roles that have had an element of pressure, but that doesn’t have to be added to by me sailing close to the deadline wind. If I like pressure – how come I like chilling out on holiday?
These are just a couple of examples of challenging beliefs to alter consequences, and I hope that you can see the place for this process in the workplace. It doesn’t just have to be about leaving things till the last moment, it was just very pertinent at the time.
So, as always, please do leave your thoughts, and of course I will now endeavour to post the proper June blog in a couple of weeks!
Cheers… Luigi
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