This free exercise, and dozens of others, were created for our book, Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It. You can learn more about Clueless by visiting our site or you can buy it from amazon.com today.
Purpose of Exercise: Identify forces that are supporting and preventing change.
How to Administer and Use this Exercise to Facilitate Behavior Change: When it comes to practicing and implementing a new behavior, (e.g. health habit, leadership skills, etc.), it is not uncommon for people to either feel a lack of motivation to committing to making a change, or they begin practicing the new behavior and gradually quit very early into the process.
An essential part of the amount of effort, practice, and dedication that is required to make a behavioral change has to do with the the “supporting” and “preventing” forces that is perceived as either helping or hindering the behavioral change process and results.
For instance, an individual that would like to lose 15 lbs may have many “supporting” forces (healthy appearance, healthy lifestyle, decreased cholesterol, etc.) to pursue a healthy diet and exercise. On the other hand, this individual may have more “preventing” forces (e.g. living with a spouse that cooks fattening food, not having time to exercise, etc.) that outweigh the supporting forces in order to achieve the goal. These forces essentially “make or break” the results of deliberately practicing a new behavior.
This exercise is a powerful tool for you and/or coaching your clients/employees to identify what supports or prevents behavioral change efforts.
