Summary

The GIRDA formula is a proven strategy for overcoming obstacles to personal change, consisting of five steps: setting goals, incrementally increasing behavior, record keeping, dismissing the inner critic, and dealing with the inner critic's ravings.

Abstract

The GIRDA formula is a method for pushing through inner barriers that prevent personal change. It includes five steps: setting short-term or long-term goals, incrementally increasing the behavior needed to reach those goals, keeping records of progress, dismissing the inner critic, and dealing with the inner critic's ravings. The formula was developed to help salespeople overcome their fears and reluctance to confront prospects, but it can also be applied to various personal change challenges such as weight loss, smoking cessation, stopping coffee, and public speaking. The formula incorporates a well-known method in psychology called 'desensitization,' which involves gradually acquiring a willingness to engage in challenging behavior.

Opinions

The GIRDA formula is a proven strategy for overcoming obstacles to personal change.
The formula can be applied to various personal change challenges.
The formula incorporates a well-known method in psychology called 'desensitization.'
The formula includes a crucial and complicated step of dealing with the inner critic's ravings.
The inner critic can be viewed as a child-like sub-self that is merely defending a self that no longer exists.
The warnings offered by the inner critic can become delusional with enough exposure or trial and error.
Real-world experience will often contradict the concerns of the inner critic.

A Formula for Behavior Change in Diverse Settings

A proven strategy to bridge the abyss between thought and action

Below is a proven formula for pushing through inner barriers that bar the way to personal change endeavors. It includes five steps to overcome obstacles to change.

Several years ago, I helped salespeople make marketing for their businesses. I developed a formula to help them with their fears and reluctance to confront prospects.

I spent several years presenting this formula in sales seminars in diverse locales in the US. Later I produced virtual meetings to expand the reach to a broader audience.

The seminar focused on different businesses. They were real estate, pest control sales, trade fairs, cemetery sales, and so forth.

The formula concentrated on cold calls and lead development. But, it also applies to various personal change challenges. These challenges include weight loss, smoking cessation, stopping coffee, and public speaking.

Areas of Application

Here is the GIRDA formula.

Steps

· G stands for short-term or long-term goals. Such goals could include cessation of a bad habit, acquisition of a new skill, or financial goals.

· I stands for incremental increasing the behavior needed to reach a goal. These behaviors might include telephone calls, public speeches, days with new levels of exercise, or nonsmoking days.

This part of the formula incorporates a well know method in psychology called ‘desensitization.’ It means gradually acquiring a willingness to engage in challenging behavior. If you progressively increase this behavior, you can better handle your negative emotions, especially your disinclinations.

· R stands for record keeping. You must record your progress daily to assess your progress. Many new behaviors, especially those that cause adverse feelings, run at a variable rate; they tend to rise and fall. You need a method to record these variations in order not to become prematurely discouraged by lack of progress.

· D stands for dismissing the inner critic. Inevitably with new efforts, the voice of the inner critic comes up with pessimistic predictions: this behavior feels too scary, there are doubts that this will work out; there is a risk of shameful outcomes; you might fail, and failure would be intolerable to withstand, and so forth.

My colleague Dr. Marlon Gieser, a clinical psychologist, argues that people are helped by seeing they have nothing to lose in undertaking a new behavior. Discouragement, frustration, and disappointment frequently go with new behaviors. An exercise between pairs, with one person enacting the inner critic and the second person playing the executive self, help people see the inner critic as’ just a voice.’

Dealing with the Ravings of the Inner Critic

The part of the formula dealing with the inner critic is the most crucial and complicated. Given the ubiquity of inner thoughts that argue against taking a presumptive scary action, this is a hard nut to crack.

But, if you begin to observe your inner critic, you can start to change your thought patterns. Think of your inner critic as a very young version of yourself. At some time in your life, you experienced something as excruciating.

Your younger self wanted to protect you from pain like this again. So, it comes with its story to protect you whenever it feels like you are going into another similar situation.

In my seminars, I had participants pair up; one person plays the role of the inner critic. The other person assumes the part of the executive self, bent on generating persuasive arguments in support of the challenge activity.

The role play highlights the irrationality of the inner critics’ arguments. Usually, the exercise offers participants a way of viewing the inner critic as a child-like sub-self; it is merely defending a self that no longer exists.

I find that with enough exposure or trial and error, the warnings offered by the inner critic become delusional. Experience with what happens when you push through your defenses teaches the lesson that what you imagine might happen is far worse than the actual outcomes.

In conclusion, you can imagine bad things happening until you are blue in the face; real-world experience will often contradict those concerns. Happily, the above formula will get you to the place that short circuits your apprehensions.