First Ladies impress me. Period. This high-profile, high-expectation position requires courage, stamina, diplomacy, and grace even in the most difficult of times. And although I harbor plenty of difficult questions for Reagan-era politics, on this one thing, Nancy and I agree: "No" harbors untold power.
On the finer points, Mrs. Reagan and I may disagree. When it comes to drugs, and especially addiction, "no" involves a myriad of complications. Let's look at day-to-day life, though, for the non-narcotics-addicted, non-alcohol-addicted, functioning adult. Sometimes "no" feels elusive. Too tough to say. Socially awkward. And yet, it's that word, whether and whenever we say it or not, that ultimately defines who we are, and who we are not.
The power of "no" conquers all, sometimes even too much. Ever witness the thrill with which a toddler throws her parents into a frenzy with that one little, two-letter word? With a simple declaration of "no" by one half-pint-of-a-person, plans can be delayed, flights missed, restaurant meals brought to a screeching halt, and grocery carts abandoned mid-isle. Prescription medicines can be left untaken, and that one little word can leave parents frazzled, in fits, and finally, at their wits-end.
What about adults? Can we wield so much power? Does adulthood somehow disempower the word "no"? Not always. Picture this: It's the beginning of a new nutrition plan for you. Maybe you're working on portion control. You're at a friend's home, enjoying some delicious cooking, and because you feel safe in this loving environment, and motivated about your new plan, you say it: "No" (OK, maybe "No thank you") It's that first time you refuse seconds. Feel the power. There's a thrill all our own when we cease the power of "no" for ourselves. We're on our way to getting what we want for ourselves. We're exercising will-power.
In fact, it's avoiding that big-bad-word "no" that can really get us in trouble. Many friends and acquaintances readily identify themselves as people having trouble saying "no". When life overwhelms me, when I'm at my worst, my lowest, my most strung-out, I realize it: I've needed to say "no" more. Although it gets poor press, "no" can even help build relationships.
I enjoyed another 4-mile walk with my good friend "D" this morning. I enjoy our great chats, the exercise, the fresh air, everything about it, yet walking early is hard. I have to get up at a certain time. It requires that I haul my petard onto the cruiser, and pedal to our meeting point, regardless of the brisk temperature. And I want more. I think she appreciates the exercise. Yet, could getting up and out the door also challenge her? We only do this together one day per week. She does it a bit more often, however, and sometimes with other friends. I'd like to challenge myself and see more of her. So: Do I ask her to join me on another day, or should I keep my question to myself? Maybe if I want to walk more, I should just...walk more! How awful I'd feel if she felt she had to respond positively to my invitation. Making my friend feel obligated to me is the last thing I'd ever want to do. I want her to have a graceful out. I want her to have veto power she felt she could use.
So I asked. And I was tentative. "Look at your calendar. You don't have to tell me now. You might have another walk planned, which is cool!" I shared several utterances of that variety, and low-and-behold, she took me up on it! She said something about making sure she didn't have another walk scheduled. Weird though it may seem, I was happier about my friend taking time to have her say, than I would have if she'd just said "yes". That might have left me wondering: Did she say "yes" because she could and wanted to, or did she feel obligated. Her reserving her right to use veto power boosted my trust in our friendship.
Veto power is everything. I'm reading Coaching with the Brain in Mind, a book by Rock & Page. In it, David Rock introduces a formula for change that's worked to support smokers to quit smoking, and adults suffering from O.C.D. to change their obsessive compulsive behaviors. The formula is long, complicated, and empowering. It holds great potential. The crux of it, though, is an individual's leverage in choice-making using veto power. The power to say "no" is the common denominator of change.
He cites some research that reports about 0.5 seconds between deciding to do something (like taking a drink) and actually doing it. Even that short period of time involves smaller chunks. There's the 0.3 second chunk of time it takes your brain to get your hand ready to pick up the glass. The next 0.2 seconds are when the magic of veto power work. If drinking is a habit, then says Rock, we have no control over will power. Our brains involuntarily offer the idea of taking a drink at whatever interval is habitual. It takes us about 0.3 seconds to recognize our brains involuntarily inviting us to do so. We do have what he calls "won't power", and it works in the last 0.2 of the 0.5 seconds it takes us to detect and act on an impulse. In that last 0.2 seconds, we have veto power to say, "Even though I could take a drink right now, I'm deciding not to". It's the power we wield to change our minds.
I'm so excited about veto power, I want to use it all the time. And I want to offer it to my friends, family, everyone I know. Can you see it? Seminars on change based on veto power. Jeannie Sponheim presenting. Several dear friends recently listened my teaching them the whole change formula, centered on this veto power concept. One of them, "J", used it recently, and proudly recounted her veto power over a cookie. We celebrated, and I confessed my own struggle with the very same cookie tray. Turns out, I'd used my veto power as well. We celebrated more. And not with cookies!
I think over all, the whole key to change is knowing where you are in the change process. Veto power is a critical step, and so many other factors support it or corrode it. A lot factors into whether or not we feel we own veto power. All stages and phases of change are normal, even regression. Remember the refusing of seconds? Recall that exemplified the motivation we feel at the beginning of something new. Why do we often go back to old, sometimes poor patterns of behavior? Visit a gym or recreation center consistently from January to March. Take a head-count. Notice the decrease in population in just that first quarter of the year. It's the change from "I'm excited and motivated about my New Year's resolutions", to "I just can't get to the gym today". And it happens because we weren't fully prepared for the change. We may be surrounded by smokers, so it's too hard to quit. We may keep the same alcoholic friends, so it's too hard to change. Ever visited with family and suddenly recognize that you're back in old patterns of unhealthy behaviors? It's all about stages of change and identifying what we need to successfully make a change.
Support helps. The process of change needs normalization so that we accept where we are in the process, identify what we now need, and then feel empowered to take the next step. How often do we decide to learn a skill, say driving, and turn around and perform that task? Never! Learning to drive involves steps, education, and practice. Change, or learning a new behavior, involves a similar process. Behavior changes can be the most challenging, involve more re-learing that predicted, and ultimately be the most rewarding. It's veto power that lets us decide and show the world who we are. Bottom line, we are all capable of change. The question is, are we willing to seek the support we need to make it happen?
On the finer points, Mrs. Reagan and I may disagree. When it comes to drugs, and especially addiction, "no" involves a myriad of complications. Let's look at day-to-day life, though, for the non-narcotics-addicted, non-alcohol-addicted, functioning adult. Sometimes "no" feels elusive. Too tough to say. Socially awkward. And yet, it's that word, whether and whenever we say it or not, that ultimately defines who we are, and who we are not.
The power of "no" conquers all, sometimes even too much. Ever witness the thrill with which a toddler throws her parents into a frenzy with that one little, two-letter word? With a simple declaration of "no" by one half-pint-of-a-person, plans can be delayed, flights missed, restaurant meals brought to a screeching halt, and grocery carts abandoned mid-isle. Prescription medicines can be left untaken, and that one little word can leave parents frazzled, in fits, and finally, at their wits-end.
What about adults? Can we wield so much power? Does adulthood somehow disempower the word "no"? Not always. Picture this: It's the beginning of a new nutrition plan for you. Maybe you're working on portion control. You're at a friend's home, enjoying some delicious cooking, and because you feel safe in this loving environment, and motivated about your new plan, you say it: "No" (OK, maybe "No thank you") It's that first time you refuse seconds. Feel the power. There's a thrill all our own when we cease the power of "no" for ourselves. We're on our way to getting what we want for ourselves. We're exercising will-power.
In fact, it's avoiding that big-bad-word "no" that can really get us in trouble. Many friends and acquaintances readily identify themselves as people having trouble saying "no". When life overwhelms me, when I'm at my worst, my lowest, my most strung-out, I realize it: I've needed to say "no" more. Although it gets poor press, "no" can even help build relationships.
I enjoyed another 4-mile walk with my good friend "D" this morning. I enjoy our great chats, the exercise, the fresh air, everything about it, yet walking early is hard. I have to get up at a certain time. It requires that I haul my petard onto the cruiser, and pedal to our meeting point, regardless of the brisk temperature. And I want more. I think she appreciates the exercise. Yet, could getting up and out the door also challenge her? We only do this together one day per week. She does it a bit more often, however, and sometimes with other friends. I'd like to challenge myself and see more of her. So: Do I ask her to join me on another day, or should I keep my question to myself? Maybe if I want to walk more, I should just...walk more! How awful I'd feel if she felt she had to respond positively to my invitation. Making my friend feel obligated to me is the last thing I'd ever want to do. I want her to have a graceful out. I want her to have veto power she felt she could use.
So I asked. And I was tentative. "Look at your calendar. You don't have to tell me now. You might have another walk planned, which is cool!" I shared several utterances of that variety, and low-and-behold, she took me up on it! She said something about making sure she didn't have another walk scheduled. Weird though it may seem, I was happier about my friend taking time to have her say, than I would have if she'd just said "yes". That might have left me wondering: Did she say "yes" because she could and wanted to, or did she feel obligated. Her reserving her right to use veto power boosted my trust in our friendship.
Veto power is everything. I'm reading Coaching with the Brain in Mind, a book by Rock & Page. In it, David Rock introduces a formula for change that's worked to support smokers to quit smoking, and adults suffering from O.C.D. to change their obsessive compulsive behaviors. The formula is long, complicated, and empowering. It holds great potential. The crux of it, though, is an individual's leverage in choice-making using veto power. The power to say "no" is the common denominator of change.
He cites some research that reports about 0.5 seconds between deciding to do something (like taking a drink) and actually doing it. Even that short period of time involves smaller chunks. There's the 0.3 second chunk of time it takes your brain to get your hand ready to pick up the glass. The next 0.2 seconds are when the magic of veto power work. If drinking is a habit, then says Rock, we have no control over will power. Our brains involuntarily offer the idea of taking a drink at whatever interval is habitual. It takes us about 0.3 seconds to recognize our brains involuntarily inviting us to do so. We do have what he calls "won't power", and it works in the last 0.2 of the 0.5 seconds it takes us to detect and act on an impulse. In that last 0.2 seconds, we have veto power to say, "Even though I could take a drink right now, I'm deciding not to". It's the power we wield to change our minds.
I'm so excited about veto power, I want to use it all the time. And I want to offer it to my friends, family, everyone I know. Can you see it? Seminars on change based on veto power. Jeannie Sponheim presenting. Several dear friends recently listened my teaching them the whole change formula, centered on this veto power concept. One of them, "J", used it recently, and proudly recounted her veto power over a cookie. We celebrated, and I confessed my own struggle with the very same cookie tray. Turns out, I'd used my veto power as well. We celebrated more. And not with cookies!
I think over all, the whole key to change is knowing where you are in the change process. Veto power is a critical step, and so many other factors support it or corrode it. A lot factors into whether or not we feel we own veto power. All stages and phases of change are normal, even regression. Remember the refusing of seconds? Recall that exemplified the motivation we feel at the beginning of something new. Why do we often go back to old, sometimes poor patterns of behavior? Visit a gym or recreation center consistently from January to March. Take a head-count. Notice the decrease in population in just that first quarter of the year. It's the change from "I'm excited and motivated about my New Year's resolutions", to "I just can't get to the gym today". And it happens because we weren't fully prepared for the change. We may be surrounded by smokers, so it's too hard to quit. We may keep the same alcoholic friends, so it's too hard to change. Ever visited with family and suddenly recognize that you're back in old patterns of unhealthy behaviors? It's all about stages of change and identifying what we need to successfully make a change.
Support helps. The process of change needs normalization so that we accept where we are in the process, identify what we now need, and then feel empowered to take the next step. How often do we decide to learn a skill, say driving, and turn around and perform that task? Never! Learning to drive involves steps, education, and practice. Change, or learning a new behavior, involves a similar process. Behavior changes can be the most challenging, involve more re-learing that predicted, and ultimately be the most rewarding. It's veto power that lets us decide and show the world who we are. Bottom line, we are all capable of change. The question is, are we willing to seek the support we need to make it happen?
