In the past couple of weeks, two events raised my awareness about why people occasionally resist what to others may appear to be an awesome opportunity. See if you can relate to this.
For many years, I was complaining to a colleague that I was bored. I’d written all the books I could think of at that point, I could only exercise ‘so much’, and while I was willing to work I was reluctant to apply for jobs for reasons which I won’t dwell upon, here. Basically, I was waiting for some event to come to me rather than making it happen. I know – not quite the personal development advice I give others, but I have my reasons and I’m not exactly on the breadline – I can be a little bit choosy.
Eventually, comes the call from the same colleague – would I like six weeks work, starting the following Monday?
My response dismayed him – “Yes, but I have things arranged so I have to sort those out and (so on).” We later chatted and he opined that after all this time of moaning about boredom, he was surprised and a tad irked that I hadn’t bitten his hand off in quite the anticipated fashion. Pause there.
This week, my son and his partner finally managed to find and rent a house. The original set moving in date was at the end of the month, but she got the call saying the landlord was eager to move them in (i.e. start earning, fair enough) and brought the moving date forward 10 days. Overjoyed, she rang my son who had just ‘passed out’ in his new job and was enjoying the shift-based work, which had a bit of a commute, and he’s still in his probationary period. I only caught her end of the conversation, but her response to whatever he said was much the same as my friend’s response was to what I had said. Lack of immediate and unrestrained joy.
That’s when it hit me. The reason for our reluctance and, I believe, the reason why people resist new impositions, and why they aren’t fond of even great change the moment it is announced.
We haven’t had time to make a plan and all we can see – in the moment – is that our commitments to ourselves and to others need to be rebalanced and that may involve disappointing people, altering appointments, changing personal plans, and other changes.
All of which we can actually do, but we need to time to think about how to do them.
In my case, I had to work out how to fit commitments I had made to family members into the proposed working week. It was do-able, and given time I could have done it. (As it was, the job was delayed two weeks and no changes were necessary.) In my son’s case, he had to take time to look at this shift pattern, see when he was available, and if leave was required, to ask for it. Again, in the event, no leave was needed. But between ‘here’s good news’ and ‘I’m all set, let’s go’ , there’s the momentary ‘oh-oh, I need to change my plans’ to be addressed.
When we make a commitment, either to ourselves or more importantly to others, we are putting our integrity on the line, even if only a little bit, and only if viewed subjectively. (Other people don’t care about our integrity if our lack of congruence suits their plans. As long as we don’t disappoint them, we are expected to disappoint others.)
We HATE doing that, and the sudden imposition or opportunity, and most specifically our ‘reluctant response’ to it, should be seen in that light. Yes, I have ‘objections’ but all they are, in the light of day, is us thinking out loud while we start to plan how to deal with the change. You can’t make that plan until you’ve identified the proble, which is all we are doing when outlining our ‘resistance’.
So, next time you announce something to somebody and their reaction isn’t quite the joyous whoop of delight you expected, just give them time to adjust. People invariably do – because they don’t want to disappoint you, either.
Just accept that their surprising reaction really isn’t that surprising at all. It’s just thinking out loud.
Police Time Management 