1 Habits… are they helping or hindering you?

As you will discover in the SUMO principle ‘Remember the Beachball’, a whole host of factors influence how we see the world and therefore how we respond to what we see. Interestingly, the filters through which we see the world have been shaped, influenced and coloured by a number of factors that many of us are now oblivious to.

Our responses to situations have now become habits; habits which were not necessarily consciously chosen but acquired unconsciously over time.

That’s why, even when we begin to understand the impact our responses have on our outcomes, it’s still not easy to change them. To put it bluntly, our habits can handicap us and prevent us from succeeding in life.

Let’s explore that statement a little further.

Imagine you’re off for a walk in the countryside. You come across a field of tall grass; so tall, in fact, that it’s higher than you are. You’re tired and know that taking a short cut through this field will get you to your destination sooner.

Slowly and tentatively you begin to move forward through the grass and as you do so you begin to leave a pathway behind you. Eventually you make your way across the field and reach your destination.

Now imagine that the next day you go for the same walk and come across the same field of tall grass. You decide to take a short cut across the field. You notice the pathway that you created yesterday. You know it got you to the other side of the field. It might still not be the most direct way through the field – that would be hard to tell without an aerial perspective – but you do know this path will lead to where you want to go.

But you still have a choice. Take the same path as yesterday, or, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you could create another one.

So what would you do?

What do you think the majority of people do? Create a new path or take the familiar and already established one?

From my experience of human behaviour, most people stick with the path they took the day before. Why? Well, for a start it’s easier and the majority of people like solutions that are easy. You also know this path will get you to where you want to be. It’s also safer. By taking this route you know what to expect. Now, of course it might not be the quickest route across the field (there could be many others that you’ve not discovered) but it’s a familiar one and the one you’re most likely to take.

The brain works in a similar way. When you do a task for the first time the brain begins to establish a series of neural pathways. The more a particular task (or response to an event) occurs, the stronger and more established the neural pathway becomes. That’s why deciding to do something differently can sound easy in theory but prove difficult in practice. It’s like taking a new path across the field, and unless you see an immediate benefit you’re more likely to return to the route (or behaviour) you’ve previously taken.

Let me give you an example of this. If you were to clasp both hands together you’d notice that one thumb is on top of the other. Try it now. Go on – no one else is watching. In my case it’s my right thumb that’s on top of my left one.

Now repeat the exercise (and if you’re reading this book whilst on a train or plane, do this as subtly as you can without drawing attention to yourself or elbowing the person next to you). However, when you do so, whichever thumb was on the bottom last time (which in my case was my left) put that one on top this time.

Now how does that feel? Strange? For most people it does. And that’s how responding differently to events can feel sometimes. It can feel strange; almost not normal. The temptation is to revert back to how we’ve always responded. We stick with what we feel comfortable with. We go back to our familiar path.

That’s absolutely fine when there are no ramifications to your behaviour. Whether your left or right thumb is on top is not going to be the deciding factor in you getting the new job, managing your stress or building a better relationship. But in many cases how you respond to events will have ramifications. Just as Linda demonstrated with her story about how she deals with aggressive drivers, people can have very similar events and experiences but have very different outcomes from each other.

Go back to that checklist you completed on page 12. Other people reading this book would have put ticks in the same boxes as you. But just because they’ve experienced the same event doesn’t mean they’ve had the same outcome. Does it?

Here’s the good news. You don’t have to become a hostage to your habits. You can create some new pathways. There could be a quicker and better route across the field.

Procrastination is a habit, as is being continually late or losing your temper. But whatever your current habits that are hindering you, you can change. If you genuinely want to respond more effectively to events that happen then look for ideas in this book to create some healthier habits.

Here’s the deal. Where you currently find yourself in life has been influenced by your habitual responses to events. And when you change the habits that hinder you and replace them with more helpful ones you will see a change in your outcomes. Things can be different. Just remember it takes time and persistence to create a new pathway and form a new habit. The question is – are you up for the challenge?

Now onto something else worth considering about why we respond the way we do to events.

2 Conditioning (or You, Me and Pavlov’s Dog)

Have you ever heard of Pavlov’s dog experiment?

Don’t worry if you haven’t, but that’s a question I ask my audiences when I’m speaking.

And I get some strange answers.

They can border on the bizarre. They tend to have a common theme, however – the ringing of a bell is usually mentioned somewhere. However, one person thought the experiment involved dissecting a dog’s head, after which when the bell rang the dog’s eyes still moved. (I always love working in Yorkshire.) Another believed the experiment involved placing electrodes on a dog’s testicles and when the bell rang the dog was either electrocuted or given some food. As the dog didn’t know if it would be fed or electrocuted it developed psychosis. Well, to the best of my knowledge neither of the above experiments ever took place – certainly not by Ivan Pavlov anyway.

Here’s what did happen.

Pavlov (1849–1936) was a Russian scientist based in St. Petersburg. He studied animal behaviour and one experiment involved him measuring the salivation levels of dogs. He noticed that his dogs’ salivation levels increased when they saw food. Just as humans may lick their lips in anticipation of a veritable feast, dogs will salivate. Pavlov took the experiment further. Using a variety of sounds, one of which is commonly believed to be the ringing of a bell, Ivan Pavlov would ring the bell as the dogs were fed. He repeated this over several days – ring the bell, feed the dogs; ring the bell, feed the dogs; ring the bell, feed the dogs. Then came the interesting part. Pavlov then began to ring the bell and not feed the dogs. The bell rang but no food came. The dogs still salivated. He continued the experiment. He kept ringing those bells; there was still no food and the dogs’ saliva continued to flow.

The experiment has been referred to as an example of conditioned response. Pavlov’s dogs had become conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell even when there was no food. In other words, their previous experiences had influenced their current responses.

OK, so what has Pavlov’s dog experiment (conducted in the 1890s) got to do with you and me living in the 21st century?

Well, quite a lot actually.

You see, in many ways we’re a bit like Pavlov’s dog. It might not be bells that cause us to salivate, but the media, our education, our upbringing and who we spend time with can all influence or condition how we see and therefore how we respond to our world and the events around us. Some of our responses to events come as automatically as Pavlov’s dog salivating at the sound of a bell. Rarely do we think about our response and the reasons why we behave the way we do – we simply tend to operate on auto-pilot – without thinking.

That’s why the whole SUMO approach is designed to help you stop, press pause and think about what outcomes you want in life and how taking control of your responses can create better outcomes for yourself and others.

You see, we need to challenge the lie that says ‘I can never change’ and learn to recognize we’re not simply an upgraded version of Pavlov’s dog. Yes, how we’ve been conditioned to see and understand ourselves and our world can have a profound impact on us, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. If we genuinely feel dissatisfied with our current outcomes to events in life then, in a sense, we need to change our conditioner. We can choose to change our mental diet and feed our minds on different information that can positively influence how we see ourselves and the world.

By becoming more aware of why we respond to events the way we do, we can, over time, work on making better responses. This won’t happen overnight; the SUMO approach is not a quick-fix instant cure, but it will equip you with ideas and insights to help you break free from what may have been unhelpful and perhaps rigid ways of responding to events.

So that’s a brief look at how our conditioning can affect us. Now let’s explore a third factor.

3 Emotions… why sensible people do stupid things

I was watching a TV documentary called Neighbours from Hell. One episode featured two families, one of which enjoyed bird watching whilst the other family had their elderly mother living with them.

One day the bird-watching family noticed a bird in their garden they had rarely seen before. The father grabbed his binoculars to study the bird. After a while the bird flew into next door’s garden.

The father followed the bird through his binoculars. At that precise moment the elderly mother was enjoying a cup of tea in the conservatory. She noticed her neighbour looking into her garden. She spotted the binoculars. She thought she was being spied upon.

Now just stop for a moment and imagine it was you in the conservatory. How would you respond to the fact that it looks like your neighbours are taking a rather unhealthy interest in what you’re up to? Would you…

• Ignore it and carry on drinking your tea?
• Leave the conservatory and go into another room?
• Wave at your neighbour?
• Strip off and reveal a part of your body?
• Plant fast-growing conifer trees between your properties in order to protect your privacy?

So what would you do?

And the response of one of the families?

They grew those conifers. In fact, they planted so many that eventually the people who liked bird watching felt like they were living in darkness. The trees grew so tall that they blocked out their sunlight.

So what happened next? Well, they asked their neighbours to trim back the conifers. They refused. The dispute escalated and they ended up fighting a legal battle that went to court. The legal costs for both families totalled over £50,000. It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? But it’s true. Perhaps the most revealing insight from the whole episode came when one of the neighbours was interviewed:

‘When my mother saw she was being spied upon she was devastated. We had no choice but to grow those conifer trees to protect our privacy.’

Ridiculous? Possibly. Laughable? Maybe. But it happened.

Now a different response would have led to a different outcome wouldn’t it? Of course it would. But it’s revealing that the neighbour felt they ‘had no choice’. And here’s the key point. Whether we’re going through a relationship break-up, have failed an exam, missed out on a promotion or whatever our current challenge or opportunity may be, we do have a choice about how we respond. After all, you’re not Pavlov’s dog.

Now nothing as ridiculous as the above scenario could ever happen in our lives, right? Our minor issues would never escalate into major ones, would they? Well, to be honest it’s at this point I start to shuffle uncomfortably in my seat. Fortunately, I get on well with my own neighbours and fast-growing conifers are not an issue. But I have to admit that there are times when, on reflection, I’m left wondering ‘Why on earth did I do that?’ ‘What in the world was I thinking?’ ‘How could I have been so stupid?’

Can you relate to that?

Or what about the following? Cast your mind back to a time when a friend, family member or colleague told you about an issue they were struggling with. As you listened to them, did you ever find yourself thinking, ‘Well the common sense thing to do would be to…’ Or thought, ‘Well it seems obvious what you’ve got to do now.’ Perhaps you’ve even offered an opinion that began with the words ‘Well if I was you I would…’ But have you then found that despite your crystal clear, incisive perspective on what to do they then completely ignore you and do something entirely different?

If so, why is that?

Why is it that something that is common sense and obvious to you seems complex and unclear to someone else? Why is it that you can see that responding differently to an event could create a very different outcome, yet other people live life with their blinkers super glued firmly in place, oblivious to other options and reciting their favourite mantra, ‘Well, I had no choice’? Why on earth do so-called intelligent (well, in most cases anyway), rational, experienced people do stupid, irrational things? Why, despite all the opportunities we have, do many people fail to succeed in life?

Ready for the answer? I guess it’s obvious when you think about it.

When the event or the problem is happening to someone else, it’s easier for you to take a more objective perspective. The less emotionally involved you are, the easier it is to engage your rational brain (we’ll look at this in more detail when we explore the SUMO principle ‘Develop Fruity Thinking’).

But when you’re emotionally involved, when the issue affects you or can have a significant impact on someone close to you, then you see things less clearly. You’ve heard the phrase ‘You can’t see the wood for the trees’, well, another alternative would be ‘Your emotions cloud the view to your solution’. It’s like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle through steamed-up glasses – it’s possible, but it’s not easy.

A way to represent the above would be as follows:

So, when our emotional involvement is low, our rational perspective is high. Conversely, when the emotional involvement is high, our rational perspective is low.

In a nutshell, the equation E + R = O does seem like simplified common sense – and it is. But this insight can, at times, completely bypass our rational minds. It’s like saying to a small child as you switch off their bedroom light, ‘There’s no need to be afraid of the dark.’ Rationally you know that to be the case – but you’re not the five-year-old who’s just watched the latest episode of Doctor Who and is left fearing an alien invasion. Emotional engagement in an issue can have the same effect. We become less rational, lose a sense of perspective and our judgement can suffer as a result.