The Messy Journey of Personal Change

"Change is hard at the beginning, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end." — Robin Sharma.

In my previous posts, I discussed what change management is, why it is essential especially in today’s rapid developing landscape and how we can track the progress of change at the individual level using the simple and intuitive 5 step process of the ADKAR model. Do check them out first if you have not done so! Now that you have some background about change management, let's dive right in to an experience of mine to illustrate the non-linearity and challenges of an individual’s change process.

It’s Fun Until It Hurts

Turning back the hands of time, I was around the age of five when the topic of learning and exploring new skills was brought up by my parents. It is understandable that as parents, we would want our children to be equipped with multiple skillsets as a way to prepare them for the challenging and unknown future ahead. The ability to swim is definitely one of the top few skills my parents wish that I will learn, especially since it's often regarded as a life saving skill. Unfortunately, swimming did not catch my interest despite their several attempts to persuade me. This ‘project’ was then shelved away by my parents. Little would I know, that I will be the one to personally dust away the cobwebs two years later to revisit this ‘project’ on my own accord...

It was supposed to be a day jam packed with fun activities on the cruise ship, which my family and relatives had board for the weekend. As this was the first time being on a huge cruise ship, my cousins and I couldn't wait to explore the place right after we checked into our rooms. When we got to the top deck, we were extremely thrilled to be greeted by the playgrounds, pools and several other fun amenities. As our parents sat down for a chit chat, my cousins and I played our usual game of tag.

Minutes into the game, we were already all sweaty and breathless from all the running around. But we couldn’t let our guard down as our fastest cousin just became ‘it’! Being the nearest to him, I naturally became his target and had to run away as fast as I could. I decided to run towards the pool, thinking that I could use the pool boundary to prevent him from catching me. The plan worked flawlessly as we circled the pool for several rounds without him closing the distance between us. In desperate attempt, he gave an all out sprint towards me. Just when I was starting my escape from him, I tripped head first into the adult pool.

Time stood still for what felt like an eternity while I slowly sank into the water, unable to comprehend immediately what has happened. It took awhile for my breathlessness to jolt my senses, and that was when the panic came in fast and hard. I struggled and tried gasping for air but none of that worked. After taking in several mouthful of water, my consciousness gradually faded...

Since I am here recollecting my experience, it comes with no surprise that I survived the incident! I woke up coughing desperately, throwing up water in exchange for air. My memories were vague at that time, but the fear and pain were carved deeply into my physical and mental body.

It Starts With Awareness Then Desire

It took me several months to collect myself after the drowning incident. It was at that point when I understood what my parents meant when they said swimming was a life saving skill. However, I learnt things the hard way and faced an internal struggle between the fear of being in the pool which I have had an unpleasant memory, versus the urgency to learn swimming. Despite the fear, I told my parents that I was ready to take up the challenge of learning to swim.

Regression Instead of Progress

Shortly after, I was enrolled in a swimming class. Excited yet fearful, I attended the first few lessons with my dad at the community pool. However, I found myself unable to keep up with the pace of my group mates as they gradually became more competent while I struggled to deal with my fear of drowning. I soon lost the desire to continue learning and told my parents that I wanted to quit.

Reassessment

As I talked to my parents about my fears and challenges, we soon realised that learning to swim wasn’t the problem. It was about learning to be comfortable in the water, to be able to stay afloat in order to overcome the fear of drowning before moving on to learn how to swim. This is a natural progression of things which we had overlooked. With the new direction in mind, my parents spoke to my swimming instructor who then designed a different curriculum for me.

You see, each individual copes with change differently. Some pick up faster than others, while some are unable to progress at all when the approach used is not suitable. This highlights the apparent weakness of our current society where an individual’s capability is being judged based on a very narrow matrix of academic and financial performance. But I digressed, this shall be a separate topic to be discussed in future posts!

The Cycle Between Knowledge and Ability

With my new curriculum, my instructor took special attention of me during classes, first explaining to me the methods I can use to stay afloat in water, followed by short periods of practice. This went on for several lessons before I felt comfortable enough in the water to move on and learn the breast stroke. Things progressed smoothly thereafter, and seeing my success with swimming, my younger brother was enrolled for swimming lessons shortly after.

Reinforcement – Big Brother Image

It’s a candid example, but one that was really effective. Being an elder brother, I felt that I had something to proof when my younger brother started to learn swimming with me. Thus, I was even more motivated to polish my skills in swimming and was always looking forward to swimming lessons on the weekends as I could show my brother the ropes.

Going Full Circle

It soon got to a point when my breast stroke was proficient enough, and my instructor proposed learning a different stroke – the freestyle. The motivation then was that freestyle was faster, and it would be useful to explore between different styles if I were to be a competitive swimmer in future. That kick started the ADKAR cycle once again, starting with the awareness stage up to the ability stage.

It was deliberate when I stopped at the ability stage during the process of learning the freestyle, instead of progressing into the last stage of change (reinforcement). For a few lessons, I practiced swimming freestyle but did not have the desire to get proficient at it. Back then, my primary desire was to overcome my fear of drowning and to learn how to swim (regardless of the swimming style). Both of which I had accomplished. Sadly, going for speed wasn’t something I was striving for, and by extension neither was becoming a competitive swimmer. Hence, I told my dad that I was done with the swimming lessons and happily regressed back into my dependable breast stroke.

Concluding

From my personal story, embracing change failed at the start as I didn’t buy into the narrative that swimming was crucial for me. And I realised this the hard way. Thankfully, I survived the ordeal and that changed my perspective about life’s challenges. It is always better to embrace change and to adapt rather than let change happen to you.

It is also evident that change is not a linear process. There will be times of regression, especially when the barriers to change is diagnose incorrectly (think overcoming the fear of drowning vs learning to swim) or if the catalyse/reason for change isn’t personalised (why must I learn to swim faster using the freestyle).

Using the example of learning the freestyle, I want to emphasis that it is also important to be mindful not to change for the sake of changing. There are situations where you can deliberately stop your change journey. It is okay to say that enough is enough, especially when the problem or obstacle has been addressed. For my case, it was overcoming the fear of drowning and learning how to swim, not learning to swim fast or to be a competitive swimmer. Knowing when to stop not only frees up time and resources for you to prioritise other pursuits that are more meaningful and urgent. For this to happen, you must have clarity about what you want to achieve in your pursuits – be it in the short term and long term.

Going back to the wise words of  Robin Sharma (quote at the beginning of this post), change is difficult and messy, but you will come to appreciate at the end when you emerge as a better version your ownself.