Be inconsistent.
Last year I deleted my Facebook account. I felt conflicted about social media because research links it to mental health disparities. The tension I felt involved my belief that social media was for being seen and heard. Posting to be faithful is inconsistent with that belief.
Consistency doesn’t help in matters of change. It’s inconsistency that’s necessary in order to create new behavior patterns, to do what’s different than what’s expected of you, and to be a different version of who you habitually say you are (in your thoughts and outloud.)
Change involves outgrowing yourself. If you were a reality show then you could watch the various characters you take on. That viewpoint of your values and identities will draw out the contradicting behaviors and surroundings actually needed to get to achieving what you want.
Curiosity, strategy, and intentionality is what helps your core beliefs learn to get along with your goals. For those of you who are readily curious you may see how your beliefs and goals look drawing the GIG tree model:
Draw the trunk of a tree.
Draw and connect to the bottom of the trunk one hearty, massive root to represent each of your values. Label each root with each value
Write your identities - what you say about yourself - in the trunk.
Draw and connect to the top of the trunk hearty branches to represent your goal directives - how exactly you’ll know you reached what you need/want.
Illustration of the steps (examples of goal directive types are listed in box 4 of the drawing.)
Now look at your tree.
Which parts of you who - or who you think you should be - support the directives? Which oppose?
Which of your values support the directives?
Which of your values do the directives seem to violate?
For those of you ready to move through the last question to explore reconciling that conflict, I’m here to support you.
The result of outgrowing myself: on Instagram I’m linking personal changes in my life with the content of these notes. GIG Design’s LinkedIn and Twitter feeds returned with regularly posted content from GIG Design’s strategy library. The most significant social media endeavor I’ve been preparing for recently is YouTube. Eep! There’s a strategic lineup of videos in the works.
