Changing Your Behaviour
Filed under: Behaviour - Mind Over Matter
CHANGING YOUR BEHAVIOUR
Presented by Macka Jensen
Changing: “Behaviours don’t change, we do!” Many lawn bowlers have difficulty in disassociating behaviours that no longer suit them or converting themselves into those they want instead. Behaviours which are hard to control are often labelled as bad attitudes. A prerequisite to successful lawn bowling is having the ability to reframe any behaviour quickly, simply and at will. One effective method is called reframing, which is simple to understand and effective to use. To obtain a better understanding about your behaviour there are number of points which you need to know.
Functional behaviours: When you think of any selection or the range of functional behaviours that you perform in your life, you may be aware that they are associated to various situations, times and places. You have an interwoven body and mental structure that lets you know when specifically to engage in certain behaviours. For example, people generally retire to bed at night, sit in the dining area to have breakfast in the morning, and if playing lawn bowls they go regularly to bowling clubs on certain or nominated days. In these examples, the context markers were as follows, an object for sleep, food and entertainment, a place and a timeframe for sleep, breakfast and bowls.
Reactionary behaviours:These are secondary behaviours which are our physical and emotional behaviours that are highlighted by our facial, vocal and body reactions. Again you can think of a selection or the range of reactionary behaviours that you have exhibited in your life, you may be aware they are also associated to such things as grief, sorrow, happiness, love, excitement, disappointment, anger, spite etc. They may also be triggered off by a single word, a refusal, inability to perform a certain lawn bowling shot, the loss of a game, being nagged or pestered by certain people, or things that go against your trend of thought or what you may tactically want to do during the game. Reactions can be quite harmless, abusive or increased to violence. This can also be connected to various situations, times and places. It is a learned interwoven body and mental structure that lets you know when to specifically engage in certain reactionary behaviours.
Flexibility: Behaviour that was once useful in its original time and place may no longer be useful. As children we learn to respond in accordance with our families of origin. Different families have their own set of unspoken rules, (different models of the world), so it becomes useful for individuals to learn to respond with flexibility as they encounter new people and situations. This is often a major issue as young adults move out of their families into the world environment. They discover other ways of socialising, encounter work place and sport behaviour in its many guises, and learn from enduring relationships in their own right.
Purpose and intent: Every act we perform has a purpose. It all starts from early childhood by crying, throwing tantrums or adopting the reactions of others to get what we want. But as we grow older the purpose may be reasoned or unreasoned, consciously intended or outside our awareness until we search for it. To find the intention of any behaviour, ask yourself (or someone else if it is their behaviour) what the behaviour is for. When a person wants to change some of their behaviour, it is the intention, purpose or function (what’s it for?) that’s important. Every time you engage in behaviour, there is an intent you want to release. The intent of your behaviour is a useful place to start when considering whether a particular behaviour gets you what you want. It is also very liberating to discover that you are not your behaviour, that your behaviour is an expression of your intent. Then, instead of deciding that someone has a “bad attitude” or “crazy” from their behaviour, it is possible to separate out the intent and work with it. This increases the likelihood that someone who is behaving in a bad or crazy way can learn some other behaviours that may be more useful in fulfilling their original intent. Direct your attention towards what you want, and what you want it for.
Reframing: When you direct your attention towards what you want, rather than what you don’t want, you become more effective in finding or aligning your inner resources to achieve a particular outcome. When developing greater choice, it is constructive to think of the intent for behaviour in terms of what you want to gain by engaging in a behaviour, not what you want to avoid. With intent in mind and reframing your attitude into a positive language towards what you want, you can create and consider other possible options of how to behave.