It’s the start of a new season and a new school year – a time to sharpen our pencils and begin again.

Keats opens his poem about Autumn by describing it as the…

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulnesss”.

I love that quote as it evokes the promise of a fresh start.

But what if you want something to change but feel like you are lacking the motivation – the will – to make that change happen?

Be assured that at the beginning you don’t need to have enough motivation to see it all the way through – you just need enough to get you off the starting blocks.

Making change happen in your life is about progress not perfection.

Everybody has enough motivation to accomplish what they want. Don’t wish for an external source to give you the motivation just trust that it is inside you waiting to get out.

The secret to successful long-term change is to use a process to get you started and to keep you motivated along the way.

7-steps to change

A process is simply set of instructions, a bit like using a recipe to bake a cake. At Behaviour Works we use a 7-step process called the ‘Whale approach’ to make change happen – you can find out more about the steps and the whale approach here. The 7-steps are:

1. Clarify

2. Wish

3. Focus

4. Impact

5. Commit

6. Understand

7. Action

The first few steps are about gaining clarity and focus about the want for change at the head/eye part of the whale.

How we start something can really determine our future success, so these first steps are all about setting up the foundations to make change happen.

Change needs to have a clear and valid reason. It’s one thing to know what you want to change, it’s another thing to know why it’s important for you to change it. Clarifying and focusing on the reason why you want something to change is a powerful emotional motivator to get you started.

The steps at the body of the whale help you to flesh out your thinking and specify the behaviours you need to do to get the change you want.

Key to this is identifying what needs to change and we use the COM-B[1] model of behaviour for this step. What the behavioural science shows is that you need 3 things to be in place to make change happen: Capability, Opportunity and Motivation.

We describe this as being a 3-legged stool so if any leg of the stool is weak that is where you focus your actions to get the change you want.

If your motivation is low you could:

Remind yourself of the consequences of not making change happen.
Identify a credible source to help you gain the skills or information you need.
Ask for other people’s approval.
Re-frame your thinking from ‘I should’ to ‘I want to’.
Identify yourself as a role model (I am a person who….)
Monitor your behaviour to get some feedback and check your progress.

You can also strengthen this your motivation by increasing your Capability to do the behaviour (e.g. knowledge and skills) and your Opportunity to do the behaviour (e.g. time, resources, the people around you).

The tail of the whale process is about gaining forward movement for change by taking action.

It’s important to choose actions to take that are appropriate and effective for you and your unique situation.

If your motivation is low, then you can choose to select actions to strengthen that aspect such as:

Monitor your behaviour
Remind yourself of your reason for wanting to change
Consider the consequences of not making the change happen
Find a credible person or source to gain the skills or information you need
Reframe your thinking from ‘I should’ to ‘I want to’
Find a suitable way to reward yourself for the progress that you’ve made.

So if you long for a new start in life but have no idea where to begin and want a set of instructions to get you started, take a look at our Making Change Happen online programme. You will receive lifetime access to short video instructions for each step, a workbook to help you to stay motivated along the way and an e-Book if you would rather read the instructions for each step. Our friendly team at Behaviour Works are always happy to chat if you have any questions.

Best wishes

Register for blog posts direct to your inbox.

Behaviour Works aim is simple. To help make change happen in your personal, family or working life. Every week we help people across the world with their own change journey with our ‘Making Change Happen’ online training. Check us out at Behaviour Works.

[1] Michie. S., van Stralen, M.M. and West, R. (2011). The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science, 6:42.

Main Photo by Konstantin Planinski on Unsplash

Pencil Photo by salvatore ventura on Unsplash.