Cognitive dissonance is a very powerful psychological construct that works as follows: when your perceptions and behaviors are out of sync, either the perception has to change or you need to change your behavior. Failure to do one or the other leads to angst and literal discomfort.
As an example, consider the individual who talks about their need to lose weight while continuing to eat prodigious amounts of food. From the moment the individual chooses to be cognizant that their actions (eating too much food) and perceptions (they are fat and need to loose weight) are dissonant, they will either need to change their diet or decide that maybe they aren’t so fat.
This may seem paradoxical since we all know people who talk about changes they want to make in their lives, yet never seem to take the actions required to affect the change. So why does cognitive dissonance not seem to work in these cases?
The answer lies in maintaining continuous, discriminating awareness, or active cognition, of the changes you are trying to make. Shining a light in terms of seeing things as they really are and taking a need to know when disconnects occur is the key delta between merely talking the talk and physically needing to walk the walk.
The metaphor that I have for using cognitive dissonance to catalyze such personal growth and change is called, “Hold a Picture in Your Pocket.” When you hold a picture in your pocket, you envision a picture that you are literally pulling out of your pocket all throughout the day that lists the primary areas of change that you are focused on working on. By holding this picture and pulling it in front of you with regularity, your force cognition, which makes you aware of dissonances, which in turn creates discomfort, driving you to change the behavior. Or, it forces you to acknowledge that you don’t really want to change.
I have used this approach for years and find it intuitive, easy to implement and very effective. Give it a try with an area of your life where your desires and actions are out of whack.
Comments