10 Best Ways to Facilitate Change with Individuals
Helping someone change is profound work. Furthermore, facilitating change with individuals it about awareness raising. I am ultimately responsible for my own change as are you. It’s up to me to take each little step. It’s my choice to do something different with my life. It’s your choice to do something different with your life. We all become stuck from time to time. We all have behaviors that are counterproductive to our life. I have come to believe it truly takes other to help cultivate the best changes in our lives. We all do better when we have people in our life cheering us on.
As a facilitator of change, there are many different tools/ideas/concepts that we can use to help cultivate such change in those around us. Whether it’s someone close to us, someone we work with, counsel, or meet on the street. Everyone deserves our respect and our gifts of service even in the most difficult situations. As a facilitator of change to be the best version of ourselves we need to first and foremost challenge our thinking and beliefs. If you would like to learn more about that please check out “Winning the War Between our Ears.” The article you are about to read gives the 10 best ways to facilitate change with individuals. We typically need ourselves in check first before we can profoundly help others. I hope you enjoy it.
1 At all costs maintain a healthy relationship (it’s your responsibility not theirs)
Relationships are easily damaged by words and actions. If we are doing our best to be the greatest version or ourselves, we must rekindle relationship. Especially the ones we have damaged but even more importantly the relationship through the other person’s eyes. What I mean is the relationship that matters most is the one viewed by the other person. How the other person views the relationship is vital to understand when facilitating change. If they don’t view the relationship as worthwhile then we have a long way to go to make repairs. Lastly change in a relationship happens by building momentum it just takes time.
2 Create a condition of genuine care and concern
If you want to facilitate change in a person, it should go without saying that you need to be genuine. This needs to show through in your actions as well as in your words. It’s so easy to damage a relationship when we aren’t acting real. It’s even more difficult to fix it after we damage it. One of the best ways to be genuine is to practice being transparent about what is happening in the moment. Purposefully and tactfully (ensuring we do no harm) call things the way you see them and ask question to try and understand.
3 Do no Harm (Make harm less whenever possible and believe it’s always possible)
In my years of work in the helping field these three words come up probably more than any other three words in my thinking daily and they are Do No Harm. They are the most deeply profound words to grasp. Everything we think and do could lead to harm if we aren’t careful. Furthermore, even if we are careful, we could still do harm. We can’t fathom what someone has been through, and we have no idea what might trigger a person especially in a new relationship. To do no harm we must read the situation and the people involved. We must ask clarifying questions, be mindful, create healthy conditions and instill hope. These 4 things are the essence of doing no harm. Lastly, after situations are finished and we are reflecting about them we should ask ourselves “where could we have done less harm?”
4 We must always seek clarity
Seeking clarity is about asking questions which creates competence in the situation which eventually leads to compassion. Compassion happens when we have a much deeper understanding about what is going on. Additionally, it’s vital to remember the conversation isn’t about us it’s about the other person and making them believe it is. Probing thinking and asking questions allows us to gain clarity and deeper understanding of the person and their situations. Facilitating change has a lot to do with helping others self-explore and come up with answer for themselves. We can do this by always seeking clarity. If you would like more insight to clarity, check out the foundational article on this website.
5 Be mindful.
It’s easy to think we know what’s best for those in our lives. Most of the time we couldn’t be further from what we believe is their truth. Being mindful is considering we are typically wrong and are misdiagnosing the situation in front of us. It’s also considering all (even though it’s impossible) the possibilities of the situation and circumstances we find ourselves in. If we are mindful with individuals, we are trying to help we lessen the probability of doing harm. Furthermore, we begin to create conditions that enhance the possibility of change. We will find ourselves less stuck in a cycle of that has no way out. If you would like more information on mindfulness, please check out the article on this website
6 Instill Hope
Facilitating change in an individual takes the mastery of instilling hope. This can be done from the very first moment you meet a person all the way to the point where the conversation has finished. If you’re really good, hope will last with someone for an extended period. Our words and actions have power. They can be very influential. They can also be our enemy. Instilling hope needs to be done with purpose and tactfulness to be most effective. Furthermore, we need to be able to read what the situation is calling for. Lastly, if you are doing something that you’re getting an adverse response to you have the obligation to change our approach. As a facilitator of change hope is a guiding light that says things will get better for you. If you want more information on instilling hope, please check out the article on this website.
7 Be ready to be flexible
People aren’t machines and life truly isn’t an exact science nor is thinking and behaviors. Therefore, we need to be flexible. Everything about our approach needs to be willing to bend to what is being said or done from moment to moment. A facilitator of change can’t be stuck on a single-minded path. Not everyone is made the same there for there isn’t any cookie cutter approach or one-size fits all. What approach may work for some may not work for others, that’s just the way it is. If you want to find some consistency in your approach to help others, become consistently flexible.
8 Always have purpose with your behaviors and presentation
Whenever you’re interacting with someone make what you’re doing count. Put your effort into your approach, body language, how you say what you’re saying (tone of voice), and how you react (matching the energy of a given situation or person). Purpose is about doing things for a specific reason. The reason we are interacting with people in this case would be to cultivate a meaningful relationship that helps a person change in some way, shape or form. Therefore, all actions from the smallest to the largest from the beginning to the end of the conversation should have a purpose. Lastly, we need to make sure our purpose isn’t self-serving. Even though it feels good it probably does harm. The purpose should be serving others in a way that does the least amount of harm.
9 Tactfully set boundaries
Boundaries can be difficult to create especially if one of the goals is to help someone change. In fact, it seems even more difficult when you are trying to maintain a healthy relationship. Boundaries are vital to relationships but sometimes they are looked at as a bad thing by the opposing party. To set them is somewhat of an art form. Boundaries need to be presented in a way where they are clear. At the same time, they need to be set in a manner where the other person still feels empowered during and afterwards. This needs to be tactfully done to the point where they (the other party) believe it’s the right thing to do. It’s extremely tricky and profound to tactfully set boundaries but with practice it can be accomplished with great outcomes. “I would just like to remind you or let you know. I’m sure it goes without saying but hear it is anyway…” is an example of how you might send your message. Again, this must be done with purpose as was discussed in the above paragraph. If you would like more information on setting boundaries check out Facilitating Crisis (Part 5)
10 Change might be 1 to 2 not 1 to 10
Change in a great sense is about building momentum. There is no magical solution or quick fix to it. Small step can be huge for people. As a facilitator of change we need to capitalize on even the simplest movement forward. Going from 1-10 or even 8 is typically not attainable for most of us. Let’s be honest, going cold turkey to problem behaviors is also not realistic for most of us. Change takes time and effort. The smallest movement needs to be recognized as an accomplishment. Giving compliments is very impactful to meaningful relationships. It’s even more important when it comes from a person in power like a facilitator or someone who has weight over people’s lives. We often tend to get caught up on negative in life. If you want to catch some up catch them doing something positive and praise them for their movement.
Conclusion
Facilitating change with individual is difficult work. It’s deeply profound interactions that are always changing each moment. As a facilitator it’s vital to use all of our gifts and skills to minimize harm at every second of the conversation. The conversation must be about them it cannot be about us. We must be extremely purposeful and tactful; we must use techniques like being flexible, come across as genuine, always seek clarity, use mindfulness and instill hope. Lastly, we must not take responsibility for someone’s change we only need to take responsibility for us and our ability to facilitate.
Facilitating change with other can make us a better person. In fact, it can help mold us into the best version or ourselves if we allow it to do so. Thank you for your time reading my work. If you like what you have read, check out other articles on the website ThinkingDeeplySelf-Critically.com the site is designed to give us tools and techniques to help us become the best version of ourselves. There are four main categories on the site. The Foundation, Our Responsibility to Us, Our Responsibility to Others and Facilitating Crisis. We can also be found on Pinterest.
The following books are recommended by us because of several different reasons. They won’t give much insight into facilitating groups in a direct sense like you might think, but they are foundational books that can offered a ton of insight on important factors developing deep meaningful relationships with others. Incredible books to add to any library if you want to learn more about why we do what we do.
