Remember that time you tried to change something and you started off all keen and enthusiastic, only to end up discouraged, with the change not sticking?
It was probably because the way you were trying to effect change didn’t match your personality.
Scratch whatever you’re trying to change for a minute and focus on how you approach change aka your change personality. Once you’ve got a fit – between the process and your personality – you’ll be much more likely to succeed.
Change can bring about uplifting new options that make our hearts hum and our feet dance with delight.
Change can open up a whole new world of options, perspectives and choices.
But change can also, depending on a variety of things like who’s initiating the change (you or someone else), your background and experience with change, feel like a dark cloud that’s threatening to carry us away to a dark place.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
The old saying ‘the only constant is change’ is true. Whether we love it or hate it, we’re faced with change.
There are lots of resources on how to go about changing (one of my favourites is the Heath Brothers’ ‘Switch; how to change when change is hard’) but there aren’t a lot on how we approach change based on our unique personalities.
What can be uplifting and zipifying (my made up word) for some, can be torture for others.
So let’s put your personality in the centre and go from there shall we?
Because I’m enamoured with tech tools, I designed a survey to help you figure out your tech personality.
Now I’ve adapted the tech personality survey to help you figure out what your approach to change is.
Answer three simple questions and immediately find out:
- Which change personality you are
- How each personality feels and thinks about change
- A related animal (to help you remember your change personality)
- What each personality needs to know to relieve change related anxiety, stress and overwhelm
- What your mission is, in order to move forward with change.
If we fit the change around our personality we’ll be more engaged and likely to succeed with said change (vs. putting on the brakes like a two year old who doesn’t want to get dressed thank you very much).
Once you know your change personality you can more easily bypass the difficult challenges change can bring, and instead bring on the benefits.
So no matter where you are on the love-hate spectrum of change (just like my tech tools, personality assessment) take a minute and find out your change personality. Your future self will thank you. After you answer the three questions you’ll immediately get your results.
Now go on and learn, laugh and lead.
Learn
The survey is based on the transtheoretical model of change, which I read about in Martha Beck’s Four-Day Win book.
Laugh
Tickle your funny bone with this short clip on what can happen when you’re facing a change and don’t have a back up plan (like knowing your change personality).
Lead
Take the change personality survey and share it with your team. Then chat about the results and how you can use the ‘need to know’ and ‘mission’ from your results to move forward the next time you’re facing a change.
This powerful and bold.