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What follows is a transcription of this week's Wellness Compass podcast episode. We invite you to listen to this ten-minute episode by clicking the player graphic above. Listening gives the full experience of the emotions and tone of what is being said, which is difficult to capture in a transcription. The spoken word is different than the written word. We are happy to provide this transcript for those who prefer to read rather than listen.
Holly: Welcome back to the The Wellness Compass podcast. My name is Holly Hughes Stoner and I'm here today with my husband, Scott Stoner. We are both marriage and family therapists and we spend our time both in our offices and working on this Wellness Compass Initiative. Our goal is to help people make choices and changes in their lives that will help them create more well-being for themselves.
Scott: This podcast is part of the overall Wellness Compass Initiative, and it is a non-profit initiative that has been around since 2008, and we were fortunate to reach tens of thousands of people. You can learn about us on our Facebook page, The Wellness Compass Initiative.
And yes, we're talking about initiative today, as it is our word for the week. Not our initiative so much, but helping people initiate positive and proactive changes for themselves. Or in their relationships, their families, or even their organizations. And you know it's as easy as that, and as hard as that, as initiating change is difficult.
So we're going to talk today about some of the things that people can do when trying to initiate a change of some sort. We have a four step process that we have learned through the years and in our professional training. We’re going to go through four stages or four steps that will guide you when there's a change that you want to initiate, one that will maximize your chances of that change being successful. What's the first step?
Holly: Well, let me tell you all four of them and then we'll delve in. The first one is to engage, and then focus, evoke, and finally plan.
Scott: Say that again. What are the four steps?
Holly: Engage, focus, evoke and plan.
So the first one, engage, means you have to engage with the problem. You have to acknowledge it. You have to recognize it. You have to become aware of it. We have this self-assessment on our website that a lot of people use, and that really helps them recognize an area of life they think needs more of their attention. Then they say, “Oh, that's something I might want to change.”
Scott: I love that you point out that we have to acknowledge that there is a change that we want to make. You need to engage it, and how you engage it is also important. We have strived to make all of our materials around change strength based, and love based, and based on self-compassion. So it's important that when we identify what change we want to initiate, we do it with self-compassion, and with love, and positive energy.
Think about it in a relationship. When you want to engage in a conversation or make a change in a relationship, if you lead with criticism and anger, sure, you're engaging the challenge that you have, but you're pretty much dooming the initiative from the from the beginning. If you engage it instead with love, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness, we have a much greater chance of being successful.
Okay. So, the first thing to do is to engage the change we want to make, to acknowledge there's a change we need to make and want to make, and we decide that we want to do it.
Holly: Or we can think of that aspect of our life as a part of our garden we haven't been tending to and now I'm going to change that. Then you're talking about your relationship to the problem like this, “I just haven't been paying attention to it yet. I recognize that I haven't been watering this part of my life. I'm going to change that.”
Scott: And in just doing that, it's going to begin to change the process. We also want to make sure we want to engage it from the inside out, not because everybody's telling us we should do this or that.
Holly: You have to have some desire yourself.
Scott: So engaging is first, next is focusing.
Holly: So you might say, I don't take care of myself very well. I want to change that. Well, that's not going to help because it’s not focused.
Scott: So why is it not going to help?
Holly: Well, it's just too big. I mean, from listening to that statement, does a person not sleep well? Do they not eat well? Do they never get up and move? But focusing it is narrowing it down. What specifically are they doing and not doing to care for their body?
Or think about these examples. What specifically is their concern about their finances? What is the concern about a relationship? If we focus in on it, what would we say is the core problem?
Scott: A common question we ask in our counseling/coaching practices and in our Wellness Circle programs is, “What's one thing I can do this week?” That's a focusing question. People that are listeners to this podcast know that I struggle with organization, organizing my time, my stuff, and so I need to focus all the time. I need to say, “Okay, I'm going to clean my desk. I'm going to organize my email inbox. I'm going to organize my calendar for this week.” Focusing up-close on organization will make me much more likely to be successful than my merely saying, “ I need to get more organized.”
Holly: That general kind of thing is not really helpful. Yeah, people have to focus in on exactly what is the problem and what they need to do differently. Now, our third step is evoke.
Scott: What does evoke mean in this context?
Holly: To, you know, kind of pull towards yourself, you evoke it, kind of pulling an idea into your mind. It's also goes with inspiring in my mind, you know, like what about this change I’m considering inspires me? Why would I even want to do this? I mean, what's the end goal?
Scott: What’s your why?
Holly: What’s your why? That's a great way of saying it. Because any change actually requires a lot of work. It maybe doesn't seem like it would be, but just organizing your stuff or your finances or whatever it is is going to take a lot of intention, and awareness, and work. And so you've got to be inspired to do this. And so to evoke the reason for putting forth the effort is important.
Scott: Exactly, because that that's what we're going to hold on to when making the change gets hard. Even changes that we want and that we choose and that we are initiating. Changes have a way of getting hard. For example, I might want to be closer in my relationships. I might want to resolve conflict that is holding me, all of us, back from being our best. Or I might want to get a better sense of my finances so that I can I can save for some things that are that are really important to me.
Holly: Or so I can sleep at night.
Scott: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So evoking is really important. Yeah. And then what's the last step?
Holly: The last thing you can do is to plan. Now is the time to plan. This means literally naming what you want to do. You plan for action. I mean, literally, what are what am I going to do? For example, “I’m going to call my friend who plays paddle and she loves it. She's made all kinds of new friends. That might be the thing that I might want to do this week to enhance my rest and play. That would help me have more fun, meet new people, if that's the thing I'm trying to do. I’m going to call her and find out more about it.” Planning literally means planning something concrete.
And you also need to plan for support when you are trying to make some sort of a change. Support really does help because there will be ups and downs and forwards and backwards. So you're going to need support from someone else.
Scott: Another thing we need to plan for is turbulence. If you've flown recently, any time really, you know, that sometimes the captain or the steward comes on the speaker and says, “You just need to know there's going to be some turbulence about 20 minutes into the flight or 20 minutes from now. It looks like we're going to be in some turbulence for a few minutes.” So now you know what's coming and then when it comes you say, “Oh, yeah, they predicted this.” I notice with a warning that I don't feel so anxious about it.
So plan for your own turbulence, as change is disruptive. That's why change is hard, and is why taking initiative is hard. And staying with it is hard. So part of the planning is knowing that this is not going to be a linear process. This is not going to be a straight up every day kind of a thing. You’re going to make progress but it's not going to be easy. It's going to be challenging.
You know, we're family therapists, so we talk about, you know, families making changes. You know, somebody comes in and talks about the fact that they want to make a change in the way dinner is done or the way maybe screen time is managed. They know they’re gonna get a lot of rolling eyes, they are probably going to get a lot of resistance when initiating these changes. They are not going to get, “Yes. We're so happy about this change. We love change.” And you know giving up bad habits or making changes is difficult.
So that's why you said we need to plan for support. We need to plan for disruptions, for turbulence, for kind of a back and forth process at times, and then work to normalize it.
And so these four steps (engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning) are important to remember as you go through changing something. Whether we name them exactly like this or not, they're throughout all models of change They will help you if you're in the midst of a change, or if there's a change that you're wanting to make. They will help you take initiative.
Holly: Yeah, that's our word for the week, initiative. I really like this because it's, it's what gets things going. It's like if you've been sitting on the seat thinking, “Maybe I should make a change.” The initiative part is like, “Okay, now I'm going to get up and I'm going to do something concrete.” Initiative is where it starts. I mean, if you don't take initiative, nothing will change. So it's an exciting word to me.
Scott: Thank you for that summary again. Part of planning is planning for imperfection, because one of the barriers to initiating change, is that we want it to, you know, just be perfect. We want it to go exactly the way we think it's going to go. But it’s important to remember that instead it’s really progress, not perfection.
We engage, we focus, we evolve, and we plan. And then we do it all over again. It's a cycle that we keep going through, learning all the time.
Holly: That’s a very important point.
Scott: We’re so honored to be on this journey with you. Again, we speak out of our expertise, and as fellow travelers. Thanks for joining us on The Wellness Compass podcast this week. You can be in touch with us through our website or on our Facebook page, The Wellness Compass Initiative. And until we gather again, may be healthy, you may be happy and may you feel a little more confident in initiating change for yourself, for your relationships, your family, or your organization.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Holly Hughes Stoner, LMFT and Scott Stoner, LMFT, are both licensed marriage and family therapists who are partners in life and in work. They are the Co-Directors and Co-Creators of the Wellness Compass Initiative, a non-profit initiative that crates preventative wellness materials for adults, families, and teens. They live in Madison, Wisconsin and are the parents of three adult children and are blessed with two grandchildren, as well.