Susan Britton MCC and a co-speaker examine whether personal change is real transformation or just a new mask. They define change as new neural connections that make different behaviors possible, but warn that these pathways can create fresh defensive habits that alter how you present yourself to the world.
and I appreciate the use of the word mask. Like in a system psychodynamic approach, you might call that persona.
Okay, yeah, persona, okay.
That's okay, the mask works, right? So I think my definition of change, I'm gonna use a neuroscience definition of change, and people can have different definitions of change, that's fine. So my definition would be when you've got new neural connections that enable you to do new behaviors that you had not, that were elusive, you had not been able to do in the past.
So new neuro behaviors that you were not able to do in the past.
New neural connections that support new, new behaviors that you hadn't been able to do in the past. Then, so unfortunately, change can be for the worse or for the better, right? So the mask idea could be that I'm just going to develop new behaviors, new neural connections, and that lead to new behaviors that will make me different in some way. I would say from a coaching and then also the psychodynamic perspective, it would be, am I developing new behaviors that are— are they like new defensive behaviors, new defenses that are going to protect me and keep me wearing, as you said, a different mask?
Susan’s ICF Educator Award | The Heart Behind the Impact Katy Montgomery, PCC
