The Upward Path

your message matters

psychology

The foreground fallacy (video)

By

When we’re having conversations about change, we can assume the other person is in an active-focus rational or emotional mode like we are. But often they’re not. And that mismatch of modes can lead to frustration and conflict.

We need to understand that a lot of people, a lot of the time, are in a reactive mode based on habits and internal housekeeping. When someone’s there, you can’t debate them into change. It needs to come from changing the way they see the world.

This post is a continuation of the ideas in my book ‘Planet of the Bubble People‘. Check that out for more on similar lines.

 

The holes in the Earth Summit

By

Pushing the Earth uphill

It turned out the Earth Summit was more of a foothill.

This was a huge event back in 1992. We hoped it would lead to fixing everything.

Looking back I can see it was inevitable that it didn’t get that traction. It didn’t have a big enough picture. In the 1990s we simply didn’t know the right things to create widespread change.

But now our toolkit is better.

The Earth Summit

This was the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio de Janeiro. At the time it was notable for bringing so many world leaders together, and also for the involvement of groups from all sectors of society in lobbying for change and running a programme of parallel activities. Campaign groups were there, of course, but so were local government, indigenous communities and many others.   [Read more…] about The holes in the Earth Summit

You’ve found your purpose – now how do you show it to people?

By

Hole in the wall graphic

I’ve come across loads of people who are helping others find their purpose, their story, their passion, the work they were meant to do or born to do, and so on.

There’s clearly a great hunger for it.

Old stories are breaking down. The world is not the way they told us when we were kids. The tracks we let ourselves be convinced to travel in have become too small. Communication networks tell us of wider perspectives and new adventures. Social straitjackets have loosened.

More and more people feel that calling to reconnect with the fire inside and bring it out to make a difference.

What happens then? You’ve been on a journey and got help along the way and found a bright new framework for your next chapter. You come out the end with a plonk ready to bring your gifts to the world.

How do you do that?   [Read more…] about You’ve found your purpose – now how do you show it to people?

If you want to change the world, stop

By

Do you think people are rational decision‑makers?

That is: you put facts in front of them about problems and solutions, have a reasoned debate, persuade them of a different point of view, then they change their position and their behaviour.

Head leaf graphicIf so, you have to let go of that idea.

Seriously. Do you want to make progress? That set of assumptions, conscious or unconscious, will keep you stuck for years.

It’s what we were doing in the environmental movement in the 1990s. Back then we didn’t know any different. Psychology and marketing weren’t mass-accessible in the way they are now.

Here’s the thing. Humans have the capacity to be rational decision-making creatures. But for most of us, most of the time, we’re not. We run on habits, worldviews, prejudices, emotions.

If you’re a person biased toward rational problem-solving, like I am and many of my friends in environmental groups were, this is confusing and frustrating. But no less true.

You still see it all the time. People have presented arguments to a government, company or individual and encountered what seems to be a stubborn refusal to shift. They’re treating it as a debating society, and wondering why it didn’t work.

From that frame of reference the main explanation available is that the other side has not understood – either because they’re stupid or because you haven’t explained it properly. So you try again (and again).

But if you step back you can see that what’s really going on is messy psychology at work, and plugging away in rational explainer mode will never succeed.

I’m not saying you should stop opposing bad things and presenting arguments. It’s important to have that out there where people can see it. It’s important that people doing bad things don’t get it all their own way, and that people inclined to question can see they’re not alone.

But in most cases winning a debate is not the point where friction is stopping you moving forward.

That is rooted in people’s conditioning, personal identity, tribal connections, how they’re used to things being done, what they value, how they suppress those values to fit in socially, and all that sort of stuff.

Welcome to the frontier of the 21st century.

 

Want to read more? This post became the first section of my book Planet of the Bubble People.

 

Is scar tissue stopping you finding your treasure?

By

Ivy covering door

Have you ever been reflecting on your life, and had an experience like going into a room and realising there’s a door that’s been wallpapered over?

Physical scar tissue comes from injuries that heal imperfectly. I’ve adopted the term as an allegory for something that happens in our inner lives.

We have different kinds of pain as we go along. We might react by taking a long time to work it through. At the other end of the scale we might try to act as if everything’s fine and carry on as normal.

But then what can often happen is that we cover it up to protect ourselves. It hasn’t healed fully, but it’s superficially workable. As a raw wound it was hard to bear, but now it’s out of sight, out of mind.  [Read more…] about Is scar tissue stopping you finding your treasure?

Facing the barricades kindly: the mental inflammation epidemic

By

It sometimes seems like people are queueing up to reject attempts to make the world better.

Brain conflictWhen I’ve been thinking about barriers to change, worldview bubbles and all that, there seems to be one thing at the base of it all.

Our brains have a directive to keep their processing workload down. They use all sorts of tricks to protect themselves.

There’s a marketing principle I came across for the first time recently: “The confused mind says no.”

When too much thinking is required, we reject the whole thing rather than working through it. But how does the level of ‘too much’ get set, and how do different people react?

One way to look at it is inflammation that’s built up over time.

Inflammation-type processes

Do you know what a panic attack is? I experienced it a couple of times several years ago, and responded in typical fashion by getting a book and learning more about it. (Panic Attacks by Christine Ingham – recommended if you’re interested.)

A panic attack happens when something that’s not actually that serious triggers your system into a fight or flight response. Adrenaline is released, heartbeat and breathing increase, senses heighten, etc – the things your body would need to fight bears or run away from them.  [Read more…] about Facing the barricades kindly: the mental inflammation epidemic