Five Years On: are you who you want to be?

I’ve never believed in 5-year plans. I deeply believe in creating and securing a vision and strategy, but that’s very different from a 5-year plan based on the assumption that life will be certain and fixed into the future. Look what happened 5 years ago when the world turned upside down. Much of what was assumed as true and absolute no longer held. There were no certainties, and we were all suspended in the unknown.

It’s also very self-limiting: the person I am now has changed and evolved over the last 5 years and will continue to do so over the next 5 years: consequentially, how I see the world and what I want out of life continues to change and evolve and expand in ways beyond my current imagination or experience.

Read that statement again carefully: ‘The person I am now has changed and evolved over the last 5 years and will continue to do so over the next 5 years: consequentially, how I see the world and what I want out of life continues to change and evolve and expand in ways beyond my current imagination or experience.’

What’s your immediate, unedited reaction? Do you easily identify with it, thinking ‘Of course!’ or do you frown and shake your head, thinking, well that’s wrong: ‘Someone’s external world might change but people don’t fundamentally change?’ Your response speaks volumes about how you regard transformational change on a personal level. Statements like: ‘I was born that way; I’m an all or nothing person; It’s in my genes; It runs in the family so what can you do?’ reveal what is called a ‘Fixed Mindset’ the belief that intelligence, talents and other abilities are innate and, crucially, we cannot change and evolve. This mindset thinks in binary terms: either/or and does not understand paradox. It cannot tolerate ‘I am both’, e.g. ‘I can be simultaneously angry with and also love you’ or finding a ‘third way’ to a solution that isn’t about a grudging compromise but about discovering an innovative way forwards that works for all concerned. I always know when I am responding from a fixed mindset….and we all have ‘no go’ areas, often tribal touchpoints!... that come from unprocessed beliefs and emotions. It reveals itself viscerally, a tight closed energy that is not open to discussion or negotiation. It’s where dogma lies.

In contrast, if you responded to the statement about fundamental change with a flowing, open energy, then you are in your ‘Growth Mindset’, a term created by psychologist Professor Carol Dweck. Here we see opportunities instead of obstacles, choosing to challenge ourselves to learn more rather than sticking in a comfort zone. We see failures and mistakes as core to experiential learning on the path to excellence and success and we welcome feedback from others, seeing this as a valuable source of information to learn and improve. And...this is my favourite quality...we are always inspired and heartened by other people’s success and happiness. We are not trapped with self-limiting thinking but see another’s success and happiness as giving us hope for our own. Yes, we might have a twinge of envy, but we understand the paradox, not a binary contradiction, of celebrating others and also wanting this for ourselves. We see envy as an indicator of something we deeply want too. Instead of getting stuck in envy, letting it fester and grow and making it our excuse not to change, we use it as the motivational fuel to create our own success and happiness.

No-one likes transformational change. Even professional change agents like me are wary of transformational change because we know it always involves a loss, a letting go. If someone says smugly, they love and are great with change, it’s generally because they are thinking of change they can control …what I call ‘pick and mix’ change. Real change forces us to let go of what we might want but probably no longer need and with that is the ‘free will’ invitation to grow and evolve. There is always a choice: do we resist and hold tightly to our old, fixed mindset and behaviours, caught in the victim loop and feeling increasingly bitter and helpless? Or do we take a deep breath and make a leap of faith into the unknown?

Look at the Transformational Curve below:

The invitation point of transformational change is when we have been hit by a brick and are on our knees. It is a moment of anguish, the ‘Point of Despair’: at a loss and feeling utterly overwhelmed by what is happening. This is the point of surrender, and it is always accompanied by feelings of shame and vulnerability, particularly for those of us who are ‘fixers’, brilliant at solving problems for others and ourselves. There is nothing we cannot handle and to get to this point of not knowing what to do is terrifying.

And yet, it is precisely at this point of despair that hope/grace springs in. On our knees, our ego pummelled, and our mind confused that everything we used to know and do is no longer working, we are finally open to the possibility that maybe we don’t know best, that maybe we can’t fix everything on our own and maybe, just maybe, there might be a different way of ‘being’,  ‘doing’ and ‘thinking’. We cannot control external events, but we can create this pause, the space between, which gives us choice in how we react. We can also control what is going to bring us inner strength and equilibrium. And from this springboard we can stretch that pause and think… helicopter vision/big picture thinking… to consider the best way forwards.

Saying yes to real change is about going into the unknown, what is called in the Gestalt Psychotherapy ‘Cycle of Action’ model, the ‘futile void’. This is a very scary place, the unknown with no certainty or guarantee of outcome. No wonder we pull back from this place, why we keep spinning in the ‘busy fool syndrome’, filling it with noise, anything not to stay in our stillness and face the void. And yet, ironically, this place is not a de-void place. It is deep and full. It is the container of feelings, deep buried feelings of hurt and loss, with the invitation to heal.

We have just commemorated 5 years on from the initial lockdown of the Covid pandemic. That moment when, for those of us not on the frontline, we were unwillingly plunged into unprecedented stillness and the noise and busy-ness were forced to stop: .we went into a global futile void.

As the first lockdown progressed, and we began to understand this wasn’t a quick-fix blip that would soon go away, many people moved from the no-thingness of the futile void to the next stage in the cycle: the ‘fertile void’. This is where true creativity and rich experiencing happens. It is the field that, having been allowed to stay fallow for a season in the ‘futile void’, has now replenished its nutrients and is ready for growth. This is the place of hope and rebirth where we can make good, authentic choices and decisions. We still have to be patient in the fertile void, but it is not a passive waiting. It is an active one, building our strength and fitness on all levels: mind, body, heart and soul, preparing us for the perfect timing of action.

In this ‘fertile void’ place of the pandemic, many promises and intentions were made to be/do better, as individuals and also collectively. We began to see and talk about what needed to be changed once we were through the other side.

It has astonished me how many people have told me recently they’ve forgotten what it was like in lockdown, as if it were a bizarre and distant world. I find this both understandable and also troubling. Understandable because it was traumatic for many of us…I lost my mother to Covid in 2021…and of course we don’t like remembering unhappy and difficult times: forgetfulness can be a kind gift. But troubling because there is a lot of learning we jettison if we deny our history without learning how to do/be different going forwards.

How many have sustained their intentions and implemented the transformational changes and how many have forgotten their promises when life seemingly reverted to pre-pandemic conditions?

But of course, we are not ‘back’ to before then. Life never reverts and any perception that life is permanent and unchanging is a naïve delusion. A fixed mindset believes it can be and wants to control what is essentially uncontrollable. The pandemic shattered that illusion. We are always in a constant flow of change and if we can accept and embrace this, then we can start to influence…not control…how change happens: in our individual lives and also in our communities and world.

Through the darkness of the pandemic and its aftermath, there has also been great light: many people have made and are making great changes within themselves and in the world. There are extraordinary innovations happening; there is greater flexibility of how and where we work; there is a new, much-needed awareness of sharing vulnerability, particularly amongst men, and an enhanced focus on mental health and self-care.

And, crucially, there is more acceptance that having a Change/Growth Mindset… an innovative and agile mindset that can respond fast and wisely to external events with the necessary inner robustness to withstand any turbulence... is crucial. This shift of consciousness is where hope lies.

So much has changed as a result of the world turning upside down. My field is leadership and we are in a very exciting era. The workforce has changed dramatically, traditional leadership theory is being questioned and we need to respond accordingly. As I say to my clients now: teach me!

Of course there are core universal truths: the need to have deep meaningful connection and a sense of integrity, passion and purpose. The Change /Growth Mindset is not about gleeful, egoistical disrupting for its own sake, with no respect or care for others. We are seeing too much of this ‘highchair tyrant’ behaviour and feeling its impact with great consternation. We will always need wisdom. Wisdom is learning from experience: it is not holding tightly to old habits and mindsets. It is embracing what needs to be changed and learning from the experience of our past mistakes how to be and do better. As Steve Jobs said, how to ‘think different.’   

So, 5 years on, how are you with your intentions and promises? Beyond the what and where you want to be, are you who you want to be, the person you want to be? And if not…as anyone with a Change/Growth Mindset will tell you…it’s never too late to change!

Hannah Elizabeth Greenwood