I was asked how to ensure lasting results when working with an organizer. Whether it’s maintaining a newly organized space or adopting any other new habit, I think the answer is not to focus on immediate change, but instead to focus on the intended result, so the new behaviors are a natural outgrowth of a person’s own awareness and insight.
Let’s say a client hires me and tells me his office is cluttered and he can never find his important papers. I could just swoop in and orchestrate a massive sorting/tossing/filing marathon and then instruct him to make sure everything is filed before he leaves work each day. He might be thrilled with the immediate change in his office, but most likely he would not follow through on maintaining it, and might eventually end up feeling like a failure.
Now let’s look at a different approach. Let’s start the appointment with some coaching around my client’s goals for who he wants to be in his life and career, and how he wants to function in his office. We’ll examine the potential benefits, the potential obstacles, the resources at my client’s disposal, and several other factors that affect his productivity. Mostly, I will listen and be a sounding board, occasionally asking my client questions that may elicit new perspectives and new possibilities. As we do this, the solutions will start to emerge for my client. Very naturally, he will start to outline his own plan for maintaining his papers. He may ask me for some practical guidance, for example, he might want to discuss the pros and cons of binders vs. files, or electronic vs. hard copy, but once he has the information and a clear sense of his purpose, he will start to think of the new behaviors as if they are already happening. He will already have started to internalize new habits.
From there, we can start to implement whatever is necessary to support the new behaviors my client is adopting, and we can probably put a few systems in place right away. Most likely, we will not create the dramatic change depicted in the first scenario. Nevertheless, my client will probably feel much more confident about the new systems, and the likelihood of his using them successfully will be immeasureably enhanced.
Undoubtedly, there will be some backsliding and some trial and error. This will be true no matter what. But if we use a coaching approach to the problem, we won’t be starting again from scratch, with no understanding of why something didn’t work and blaming ourselves or others. A coaching perspective will allow us to make the necessary adjustments more easily and continue making progress.
When we attempt to force ourselves to do something that feels unnatural and foreign, the likelihood for success is very low. By taking time to consider who we want to become as a result of our habit change, we call upon our future self to guide the way. New behaviors come from within us, and the likelihood of success skyrockets.