Exploring Ambivalence

 

Ambivalence is defined as the experience of conflicting emotions.  In some ways, we want to change but in other ways we don’t.  It is a fluctuating level of readiness. Most of us have probably experienced ambivalence about keeping the house clean, losing weight, doing more exercise or some other virtuous activity.

 In some ways, we would like to be healthier and look good in our clothes, but in other ways, we enjoy eating biscuits and cakes and don’t want to give them up.  In some ways, we would like to have a spotless house, but we also prefer to spend our time watching TV, gardening, reading or socialising.  In some ways we would like to quit smoking, but in other ways we enjoy the buzz, the social aspect of it or even the sense of “f**k it” self-destruction we experience.  People often recognise the harm of their behaviour but are nevertheless attached to it.

Trying to persuade or force people to change is often unproductive.  If your partner/parent/friend represents one side of the argument by trying to persuade you to change, then it allows and even encourages you to give voice to the other side.   The more someone else argues, “you should change jobs/leave your partner/give up smoking”, the more you are likely to articulate the other side of the argument with “yes but…”.

Since articulating one side of the argument increases your commitment to it (strengthening the neural pathways that correspond to this view), this will reduce your motivation to change.  The conflict is thus acted out and the argument is counterproductive.

There are pros and cons to each side of the conflict, which create this see-saw effect. As the weight begins to tip one way, you will tend to focus on (and shift weight to) the opposite side. This is known as the ‘decisional balance’.  As long as this see-saw effect continues, you will experience some level of ambivalence, and will not be fully committed to change.

Adding to this issue, we tend to prioritise short-term pleasures over long-term gains.  If a lovely bowl of crisps and a pint of beer is sitting right in front of us, our auto-pilot decision-making will tell us to help ourselves and enjoy the tasty, calorific snack, leaving our logical brain muttering somewhere in the background about hangovers and weight-loss.

So, how do you get out of this seesaw situation and build your own motivation to make a change in your life, maybe a change that scares you or will involve giving up short-term pleasures for a long-term gain?

Firstly, you need to acknowledge to yourself all the reasons why you do want to carry on with the negative behaviour or stay in your current comfort zone.  By fulling articulating all the reasons you like this behaviour to yourself, you can then free yourself up from “yes, but..” thinking.  Once you have named all the reasons not to change, you may find the reasons to make a change popping up quite naturally.  Acknowledge that you have a choice – you can change or not change and it is really up to you.

My old yoga teacher strongly encouraged all his students to do a daily yoga practice.  For a long time, I used to say, “I can’t, my children are too young, I’m not getting enough sleep, they always interrupt or need attention.”  The day that I changed my internal narrative to “I could do a daily yoga practice but I am choosing not to because I am prioritising time with my children and getting a bit more sleep in the mornings,” was the day I stopped arguing with myself and actually started doing the practice.

Once you have got the reasons not to change out of the way and acknowledged that the choice to change is yours to make or not as you see fit, then you can start to think about the benefits of changing.  What do you want to be different in your life?  Where are you heading now and where do you want to be heading?  How are your current actions or behaviour in conflict with your true values?

Whilst external rewards (such as giving yourself a treat when you stick to your plan or getting praise from others) can help to kick start a lifestyle change, the strongest motivation is internal motivation that is driven by your own values and your vision of the person you want to be.  Maybe you don’t want to be the kind of grandparent who can’t get down on the floor to play with the grandchildren.  You might not want to be a bad role model to your children by smoking in front of them.  Maybe you don’t want to be the sort of person who moans about their job but never does anything to change it.  Having a clear vision of how the track you are currently on is in conflict with your cherished values can be the very best motivation to change.

 

What Is Yoga?

My regular readers will know that I have recently started a Yoga Teacher Training course with Universal Yoga.  The course is beautiful and I feel very privileged to have this opportunity.  It is also challenging on many levels – emotional, intellectual and physical.  By the end of the second weekend, my head was spinning from philosophy, teaching techniques and anatomy and physiology, and I had done more asana (physical poses), pranayama (breathing exercises), meditation, mindful walking and chanting in a weekend than I believed could possibly be fitted in!

Our starting point was the seemingly simple question, what is yoga?  We examined dictionary definitions, definitions passed down the ages from the early yoga texts, and more modern descriptions from eminent yoga teachers, before moving onto our own personal definitions.  We all agreed that yoga is more than a set of exercises to do on your yoga mat each week, but what more it is seems personal.  Some of the group are very drawn to chanting and devotional yoga, while others are more drawn to secular mindfulness or strong physical practice.

For me, yoga is a set of tools that I can use to energise myself, maintain equanimity in difficult circumstances, stay healthy and find more joy in everyday life.  When I practice yoga every day, I feel different: lighter, looser, happier, less irritable, more focused and more compassionate.  It is hard to put my finger on exactly what is different, but other people notice it – my professional discussions go better, my family are more relaxed, I have more random conversations with strangers, and I pass less stress onto my team at work.

Many people are drawn to yoga for the physical benefits.  Through practising yoga, I have certainly become both more flexible and stronger.  It helps me cultivate stamina, since a vigorous set of sun salutations is definitely cardio-vascular.  Practising yoga with careful attention makes the poses safe; by learning how to come to my edge, and release with the breath, rather than forcing myself into a pose, I can practice without getting injured.  After a yoga practice or class, I may leave feeling energised and joyful, or calm and restored.

When I first practiced yoga, I thought of it as a mainly physical practice and I enjoyed challenging myself to achieve more difficult asanas.  I had enjoyed gymnastics as a child, even though I was never very good at it, and yoga just seemed like grown up gymnastics.  I got a kick out of being able to stand on my head, get my forehead to my shins and twist myself into the lotus.  Other benefits of yoga quickly started to creep up on me though.

As a university student, I experienced a lot of anxiety, and my Mum gave me her Sivananda yoga book.  I started a daily practice and this helped me to control my anxiety  by focusing on the present moment rather than my large, existential concerns.  Each pose is a moment of stillness and focus, of noticing what is happening in the body and remembering to breath slowly in each different shape.  Yoga means “to yoke” or “union” in Sanskrit, and one way to think of this is the bringing together of attention on breath, mind and body at a particularly moment in time.  I wasn’t aware of the concept of mindfulness at the time, but without anyone ever explaining it to me, the yoga asanas (postures) helped me to be more mindful in the present moment.

Through my twenties and thirties, I had periods of practising and periods of not, but in most of the more challenging periods of my life – relationship breakups, health issues, bereavement, job insecurity, starting a family – I have been drawn back to yoga.  My mat is my sanctuary, a place where I know I can find respite from whatever problems I have.  My pregnancy yoga teacher was particularly keen on teaching us how to breath through physical discomfort, and this is a skill to return to over and over in life.  When I come into the present moment on my mat and focus on my breath, I come back to my true self and find my inner strength.  Yoga reminds me that I am still alive, still breathing and quite safe in the present moment.

In fact, the present moment is not much short of a miracle – the collection of atoms and molecules that make up me will only be together for a very short time in the life of the universe, and here I am, experiencing my own version of consciousness right here today.  One day my atoms will no longer make up me anymore, but will mix up again with the rest of the universe = the period of time that they are configured as me is short indeed.

Yoga asanas are intended to release built-up prana (life force) and to help energy to flow smoothly through the body.  This can be experienced immediately after any asana, when a few moments inward exploration will reveal energy changes – there may be a calm release of tension or an uplifting, even euphoric lift of energy.  By choosing a balanced sequence of asanas, the overall practice leads to a balanced energy.  When I practice yoga in the morning, I feel energised and focused throughout my day.  If I don’t practice for a few days, I feel sluggish, slow and heavy.

Patanjali’s opening sutras can be translated as:

Now, the teachings of yoga.

Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness.

Then pure awareness can abide in its very nature. (translated by Chip Hartranft)

Yoga is a way of bringing stillness to the mind, so that we can let go of all the conditioning we have experienced, the assumptions we make, the thought patterns we have developed and our habitual ways of telling stories about the world, ourselves and our relationships.  In letting go of all that, we can experience stillness and a sense of unity with the rest of the universe.

Patanjali describes this as the uniting of individual consciousness with the universal consciousness – recognising that they are the same.  Achieving this sounds like a lofty and esoteric ambition, and would probably put off many beginning yoga students who just want to feel healthier and calmer.  A little research into modern neuroscience also calls into question his dualist perspective.  Nevertheless, as we progress in yoga, we may more inclined to wonder what this self or consciousness that we experience really is and to experience it in more subtle ways through meditation.

We are constantly narrating stories about ourselves and world around us to ourselves.  Nowhere is this truer than on the yoga mat, where I may be thinking, “I can’t do this, my arms are too short”, “We’ve been in this pose for ages, has the teacher forgotten us?” “Look at me in this amazing, clever pose”, or “This meditation is so boring, when will the time be up?”  In noticing my own internal monologue, I can start to step back from it and be less enmeshed in my beliefs and assumptions.  I might notice my ego fluffing up, boredom setting in or my resistance to a physical sensation, and in noticing it, that story and the set of emotions that went with it lose their power.  So yoga becomes a way of not just enquiring about my physical abilities and limitations, but also a way of enquiring about my thought processes.

Occasionally in yoga, there are moments of real stillness when the monkey mind ceases it’s chatter and all is quiet.  In these moments, there is an experience of something that sits underneath all our thoughts – the self that witnesses all those mental events but does not become them.  Experiencing this self helps me to realise that I am not my emotions and thoughts – these are just events that happen to me. In this way, I become less attached to the things that I think I need and want.

Seeing all of life as an opportunity to learn more about myself and to loosen the bonds of attachment to the things I want can also help to get through difficult times.  I remember a particular time when a group of us in my workplace had our jobs downgraded.  This was, of course, a huge threat to my sense of self, my status and my position in the organisation. But, by thinking about it as an opportunity to learn about my attachment to these things and practice letting go, I could get through it with a little bit more grace.  I still wouldn’t say it was graceful, but probably a lot more graceful than it could have been.

There is also a moral code in yoga.  The Yamas and Niyamas which Patanjali outlines in the Sutras cover ethical principles that include non-harming, truthfulness and non- stealing.  Most yoga teachers do not discuss these moral principles in general interest classes, but I believe the practice of yoga naturally draws people towards a more thoughtful and compassionate lifestyle.  As my ego has softened, I naturally see myself as part of a large inter-connected universe.  Harm to one part of the universe is harm to the whole, and therefore to myself.

Although I have been vegetarian or longer than I have practised yoga, I find yoga increases my commitment to avoiding harm to animals and the environment.  It seems natural to be concerned about the well being of other people, animals and our planet.  Of course, I am very far from perfect, and I lead a normal Western lifestyle, so I am aware that I do have a negative impact on the planet.  It’s not always easy to make ethical choices (is imported soya in a plastic bag better or worse than free range eggs in a cardboard box?) and the great temptation is to give up on thinking about it altogether (often guilty, sadly).  Awareness is the first step towards taking some steps to minimise harm but this is a tough journey.

Yoga, and the increased self-awareness it brings, also leads to noting the impact of what I eat on my energy levels and general health.  Caffeine tends to give me headaches, so I try to avoid it, and sugar gives me an unbalanced energy that later leaves me with more cravings, so again, I try to minimise it (difficult because I don’t have a lot of willpower when there is a packet of biscuits in front of me).  Yoga helps me to mindfully enjoy food as a daily pleasure, without getting too drawn into either depriving myself or over-indulging.

So, if I had to sum it up, I would say yoga is like a secret super-power that enhances the good days and gets me though the bad days intact.  The teachings are a treasure chest of amazing tools, and we are lucky that there have been so many great teachers who have spread the word.

 

 

 

High Low Goals

A great goal is challenging enough to motivate us, but not so challenging that we expect to fail.  It should take us to the edge of our capabilities, but no further.

We like to be stretched (why else would we set goals?) but we are not great at persistence in the face of failure, so it’s best to avoid goals that we are unlikely to achieve.

It takes a strong person to pick themselves straight back up after failure and keep going, and the tendency is to give up the whole goal as a bad job as soon as we go off track.  How many times have you decided to give up biscuits, but then you slip up and eat one, and having eaten one, you carry on to eat half the packet?

For this reason, “high-low goals” can be more motivating than specific goals.  A “high-low” goal specifies a range, so examples include:

• Do 20-40 minutes revision each night
• Apply for 2-5 jobs per week
• Practice yoga for 10-30 minutes every morning
• Reduce consumption of biscuits to 1-3 per week/day

These goals can be more motivational because if you only make the bottom of the range (twenty minutes revision or two jobs), you can still feel positive and good about yourself for having achieved your goal.  You are more likely to continue to pursue the goal, because you feel you are succeeding and you are getting that little buzz of achievement each day.  Next day or week, you might achieve nearer the top of the range.

On another occasion, you may achieve the bottom of the range quite easily and feel encouraged to continue for a bit longer to achieve the top of the range.  So you may apply for two jobs, and then carry on applying for another three.  With a traditional specific goal, you might have just thought “job done” at two and stopped.

So with this in mind my goal for September is to write (or research) for 10-60 minutes per hour each day.  I can definitely manage ten minutes per day (that is only reading half a chapter or drafting a few paragraphs) but on a good day I might well manage an hour.  Knowing that I never have to do more than an hour is also a relief!

Motivational Interviewing or NLP?

I have often been asked which approach a professional should take in order to build motivation with their clients.  The person asking may be wanting to help their clients or learners to be more proactive with career planning, get back into job search after a period of unemployment, maintain a new habit, make progress with a qualification or develop a daily practice.  The barrier they are encountering is a seeming lack of motivation.

Motivational Interviewing

Motivational Interviewing was first developed by Miller and Rollnick (who have written the definitive book on the subject) to work with drug addicts, smokers and alcoholics, but it is now used a whole range of settings, including health and career development.

Mindfulness teachers, for example, might use this approach to motivate a learner to do the daily mindfulness practice required for a learning programme , whilst Careers Advisers might use the approach with unemployed clients, to motivate them to look for work or proactively explore their options.

To get your head around this approach, you need to start by thinking about ambivalence.  If you find it hard to motivate yourself to do something, it is usually because you are in some way ambivalent – in some ways you want to do it, in other ways you don’t.  For example, in some ways you might want a promotion (more money, more challenge, more high-profile) but in other ways you might not (fear of failure, more stress, not sure you if have the skills).  The scales can tip from side to side, and MI works with the client to help them uncover what is on each side of the scales, and then tip the balance towards the desired action (if there is one).

There are two components to motivation – believing that something is important, and feeling confident that if you took action, you would succeed.  If either of these beliefs is weak, motivation will be weak as well, so the interviewer works to increase these two beliefs.

One of the common traps in trying to motivate someone is giving advice – telling them what you think they should do.  Often when people tell you what to do, they articulate what is on one side of the scales (all the reasons to act), and you respond by articulating the other side of the scales (all the reasons not to act), which has the effect of weakening your motivation to act.  For example, if my mindfulness teacher tells me all the reasons a daily practice is important to get the benefits from the programme, I will respond by explaining all the reasons I can’t do it (not enough time, children too young, being too bored, forgetting etc.).

So in MI, you start in the opposite place – you explore with the person why they don’t want to act, and by really listening and understanding their responses, you free them up to articulate the other side of the scales – why they should act.  Articulating the reasons why you should act strengthens motivation.

So a Careers Adviser, for example, might explore with a client all the reasons why she finds it difficult to identify vacancies she could apply for – not enough time, not knowing where to look, not seeing anything local, forgetting, lacking confidence, not seeing anything that matches her skills – and then only after this has been explored well, would the Careers Adviser use questions to elicit more positive statements from the client about the benefits of finding some vacancies.  The point is very much that the reasons for sticking to the exercises must come from the client, not the practitioner.

There are many specific questions and techniques that are used in MI, but the basics are fairly simple:

• Open Questions
• Affirmation
• Reflective listening
• Summaries

These are all basic counselling skills, used in many professions.  As with client-centred counselling, you need a lot of respect and empathy for the individual you are working with, and you need to believe that they have the potential to change.  The key thing that is different from client-centred couneslling is that the interviewer uses techniques to help the client build motivation to act in a certain direction – to manage their career, to give up smoking, to exercise regularly, to meditate, to engage with a  training programme.

There is a lot of academic research supporting the efficacy of this approach, and it seems to be most effective when the interviewer genuinely does have empathy and respect for the client/patient/learner.

My experience of MI is that it is really effective in working with reluctant or disengaged clients.  It is a great approach to working with clients who have been “sent” for an interview, and don’t want to be there.  It works really well with anyone who seems ambivalent; they say they want something but they don’t take much action to achieve it.  I’ve also used techniques from motivational interviewing on friends and family, with some success!

It’s also useful in a management situation, when you are perhaps hoping to motivate someone to make the best of their potential – perhaps do some extra training, take on a new project or role,  take control of changes in the workplace, or develop new skills.  It doesn’t fit so well, however, with managing performance in the workplace.  If you are in the position of having to set targets and ensure they are met, you are providing an external “stick” and you can’t then be neutral enough to do motivational interviewing in it’s true form.

So What About NLP?

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is widely used in business and management, life coaching, sports coaching and communication skills training.  The jury is still out on how effective it is – some people swear by it and others think it is a bit of a con.  There are loads of books, trainers and websites on NLP, explaining how to use NLP techniques to get the most out of life, set and achieve goals, improve your relationships and anything else you care to mention!  NLP consultants often come into organisations to improve communication skills, increase sales or improve motivation.

NLP was developed by Bandler and Grinder, and is a set of practical techniques to improve your skills in managing your thought patterns, communications and behaviour.  Where Motivational Interviewing delves around in the negative, NLP relentlessly concentrates on the positive.

So the mindfulness teacher above might work with her learner and ask her to visualise how her life would be in five years if she had maintained a daily mindfulness practice.  The learner might imagine herself as calmer and more able to deal with difficult emotions, feeling more positive in work and enjoying her family.  She would be asked to make this vision as clear as possible – what can she see, what do others say about her, how is she dressed, what colours are in the picture?  She could perhaps add some music to this mental picture.  Then she would be asked to keep this picture in her mind every day, so that subconsciously she makes choices which lead her towards it.

A Careers Adviser might work with a client to identify negative thought patterns (e.g. There’s no point in looking for a job because I’ll never get one) and replace them with more positive “self-talk” – If I keep applying for suitable jobs, I will be getting more interview practice and in the end I will find something.  

NLP is often used in Career Guidance to improve confidence in managing new situations, job interviews, presentations.  It can also be used to help clients set ambitious goals and think into the long-term about how they want their life to be.  There are techniques than can be used to help clients control negative emotions – anger, anxiety, shyness – and to improve relationship and communication skills.  

NLP techniques are great to use with clients/patients/colleagues who want to take part in the activities.  They can be adapted well to group sessions as well.  They are also good for mentoring relationships – perhaps in the workplace or in education.  I’m not completely convinced about the whole NLP package, but there are definitely tools in there that are very useful, and I’ve made small changes in my life as a result of doing NLP activities, so some of it at least has worked for me!

So which to invest in?

If you want to spend a bit of time developing your skills in one of these areas, which should you explore?

If by nature, you are an empathic listener with a more facilitative approach, MI will probably come easily to you.  If you see yourself as more a magician with a tool box of tricks, NLP is likely to be more attractive. MI will suit you better if your preference is to explore what is here right now in the present, whilst NLP may suit you better if you are future-orientated and like to have goals. Choosing approaches on this basis will build on your natural strengths.  However, there might also be something to be said for working with the approach that comes less naturally to you!

If the people you are working with are reluctant to engage at all, then motivational interviewing will be a better starting point for engaging them.  If on the other hand, the people you work with are already committed to working with you and making changes, you may find that there are plenty of techniques in NLP that will work well for you (although MI will still be useful when you hit brick walls and no progress is being made).

If you like approaches that have been rigorously tested, the MI wins on that score. If, however, you are more persuaded by what seems to work well in practice for you, then there are plenty of people who swear by NLP and you may be one of them.

Of course, you may just find that both approaches are worth learning more about and using as appropriate.

Meditating for Motivation

Lack of motivation can be one of the biggest barriers to taking control of our careers.  It’s all too easy to find ourselves stuck, in jobs that are sapping our energy, stressing us out and not allowing us to achieve our potential.

No matter what career stage we are at, it is so easy to build a web of de-motivating thoughts that can become a mental cage, keeping us firmly stuck. If you are in this gang you might recognise these thoughts:

• I don’t have time
• I’m too busy/tired/stressed to think…
• There aren’t any jobs out there that pay well enough/are local enough/give me the hours I need
• I might fail…
• There will be too much competition
• Maybe things aren’t so bad here anyway
• I don’t know where to start
• My family need me
• I’m not qualified enough
• I’m not confident enough
• I’m not that kind of person

These thoughts flit through our minds whenever we think about career change, and we don’t do anything about it.

Think about how much you have done to actively manage your career in the last few months. Have you learnt a new skill, made some professional contacts, looked at job ads, updated your CV, researched an organisation you are interested in, used social media to build your brand, taken on a challenging project to raise your profile? If the honest answer is that you have not done very much, chances are that motivation is your biggest barrier.

It is worth noting that you can have different levels of motivation for different activities. You might be very motivated to get fit, but less motivated to learn to play the ukulele. You might be super motivated to do a good job for your employer, but less motivated to look after your own career.

Motivational interviewing theorists, Miller and Rollnick, identify two components to motivation – knowing the change is important and believing that you can successfully make the change.  If your beliefs in either of these areas are negative, then motivation to change will be low.  So, if I am really fed up with job and think it is important to get a new one, but don’t feel confident that I can actually succeed, motivation will be low.  Motivation often hits a low point after people have applied for a few opportunities and been rejected, as confidence dwindles.  Alternatively, I might be quite content in my job and confident I can get a new one if I need, so motivation may also be low, because career management doesn’t seem important to me (and I may be lapsing into a state of complacency).

Motivational Interviewing is an approach which builds on an empathic relationship between the helper and the person being helped, and there are a range of excellent questioning techniques which the helper can use.

Meditation can also be a very powerful tool to help build motivation.  The beliefs that we have (no jobs out there, not qualified enough) can seem very real and concrete, and can weave together in our minds to form a solid barrier to progress.  These thoughts may even be operating below the level of our conscious awareness if we are not in the habit of noticing our thought patterns.

Meditating can help us to notice the thoughts that pop up in our minds.  In sitting quietly and listening to the chatter of our minds it can be quite disturbing to realise how many negative and self-limiting thoughts we have.  These thoughts might be based on things that other people have said to us, negative experiences, or things that we say to ourselves.  We often latch onto these negative thoughts and build a story around them, entrenching them in our belief system.  Before we know it, we have deep seated beliefs that prevent us from getting started on making changes or cause us to give up easily.

A good activity to try in meditation is to imagine our minds are like the sky, and thoughts are like the clouds that float across it.  They are temporary, and arise and disappear again.  If we find ourselves getting involved with a thought and developing a story around it, we can notice this is happening, and then let the thought go.  Because thoughts are temporary they do not have power over us.  Just because we think them, it doesn’t mean they are true.

Practicing this meditation often can help develop a sense of spaciousness in our thoughts which can make room for new ideas, thoughts and ways of being.  It can create the space for positive thoughts to creep in (“Maybe I could…” or “What if I tried…”).

Regular meditation over a period of time can help to dissolve that barrier of seemingly solid, permanent, negative thoughts which have woven together to prevent us moving forward.

I’m not aware of any research looking specifically on the impact of meditation on career motivation but there is plenty of research on the wider benefits of meditation. Combining meditation with career coaching/guidance could be a powerful combination for getting unstuck.