Messing with your Operating System

Long ago I was taught the interconnection between our beliefs, our attitudes, and our behavior.  Beliefs are mental.  We all have a set of beliefs about what is important and how things work.  Many of our beliefs are unexamined hence they may be correct or not.  Attitudes are emotional.  We are drawn to some things and not to others.  Ask a group of people to state their favorite color and you get a wide variety of answers.  There is no right or wrong to emotions but they are powerful drivers of behavior.  Behavior is just what we do.  We make thousands of choices each day, some big and some small.

The fascinating part is something all advertisers know, if you change one of the three the others will follow.  If you come to believe a new dish soap is better than the one you are using, you are not only more likely to like it but also to buy it.  Or, if a new soap is a color you tend to like, you are likely to believe it is better than other soaps and so also to buy it.  It is even true that if someone can get you to buy a new soap by positioning it in a convenient place, you are likely to believe it is better than what you have been using and to prefer it going forward.

The best way to coach you to change your beliefs is to ask you questions about what they are and why you hold them.  As you hear yourself answering, you create room for new information to penetrate your old belief.  A subtle but real shift can occur.  The best way to coach you to change your attitude is to invite you to see the situation in a new manner.  As you consider the information you had not thought about, new feelings often emerge.  The best way to coach you to change your behavior is to suggest a different behavior to accomplish one of your important goals and to encourage you to try it and discover it works better than your old way.

This is very powerful.  Think of someone with whom you don’t get along.  You likely have beliefs about them (they can’t be trusted), negative feelings about them (you don’t like them) and so you choose to avoid them as best you can. If I invite you to examine those beliefs and attitudes, that relationship may be transformed into one that is far more useful.

Welcome to Operating System development.  How would your Operating System benefit from a tune-up?