On the Road 91in order to stay the same, just as our skin renews itself every
day in order to keep us alive.
When you decide to make changes, as long as the change
is in accordance with your vision and values, it will take you
to a higher level. Leadership is one example of this sort of
‘generative change’. You can deal with the accompanying re-
luctance by making sure you keep some important parts of
your life stable.
For example, last year a friend of mine moved house, re-
married and started a new job. He wanted all these changes,
but he felt anxious just the same. So he decided that three
parts of his life were going to stay the same: his exercise pro-
gramme, his visits to his children by his first marriage and his
work position (he had also been offered a promotion). He
said that he felt these were the counterweights he needed to
balance the other changes. He thought of it just like a set of
scales. He needed a counterweight to keep his life from tip-
ping up.
Similarly, the body’s homeostatic mechanisms work a little
like a central heating thermostat. With a thermostat, you set
the temperature level in advance to what suits you. When the
temperature drops below that level, the thermostat makes
the heating come on. When the heating goes on, the tem-
perature rises, bringing the thermostat up to the set point.
Think about your response to change in the same sort of
way. Where have you set the level on your change thermo-
stat? How wide a comfort zone do you have? How much
change can you tolerate comfortably before you try to stop
it? If you have a low tolerance, then you will respond to even
the slightest change with reluctance. If you have a very high
tolerance, then your life may be quite the opposite – there
may be so much change you may live in an atmosphere of
personal chaos where it is difficult to hang on to anything
for very long. Life with you will be very exciting, if perhaps
exhausting. So use reluctance as a signal not only to look at
the changes you are making, but also to question where you
have set your level. Sometimes we leave the level stuck on a
childhood setting and do not think to adjust it.