Last year I attended an intensive training in the art of Motivational Interviewing, a technique proven to be very successful in working with “difficult populations,” such as people with addictions and/or
trouble with the law. Now, a year later, there is one phrase that has proven so valuable, it alone was worth the price of admission. It is the reminder that when viewing our options to change, we can always “choose to do nothing.”
Huh? Yes, doing nothing about your situation is indeed a choice. And for a lot of people, when we reinforce to them in a non-judgmental way that doing nothing and staying just the way they are is an acceptable option, it reduces the fight against making a change. Suddenly, the motivation to change stops coming from the outside, and a person has the opportunity to evaluate their own ambivalence. If you are lecturing me about why I have to change my diet, human nature will make me want to eat more, just to maintain my sense of control and power.
If, however, after exploring why I may want to eat healthier and feeling the decision to make a change to live my own values is totally up to me, I might actually give it a try. In fact, what I have found for myself and in working with people making difficult changes is that after exploring their own very real reasons for wanting to change (not a partner or a doctor’s), when offered the choice of not yet doing anything to change, the option seems ridiculous: “Why would I choose to do nothing?”
By acknowledging that not changing anything is a choice we make, the source of power comes back to us. It opens the door to a variety of options and actively engages with what we want and what we feel capable of doing. It also tends to break the black and white thinking that tends to get in the way of change: that we have to give up everything in order to be successful. Maybe we don’t feel ready to stop drinking, but we do feel ready to read up on the health effects of drinking or attend one AA meeting, just to check it out. When we recognize that our behavior is totally our choice, we don’t have to stay stuck in order to prove we are in control.
Simply put, when it comes to change, if I know that I can choose to do nothing, I am more likely to choose to do something!