Travellers are constantly asked on the London Underground “Can you spare any change, mate?”

My temptation is to reply – “I can spare a lot of change”. But we both are referring to different change.

In personal development, the Big Issue is being able to flex your behaviour to adapt to your changing environment. Perhaps you need to be more of a leader and less of a follower, more proactive than reactive or more caring in your relationships.

How do you begin to make that change? There does not seem to be a silver bullet that acts like magic and transforms the behaviour (although I have seen some NLP [neuro-linguistic programming] techniques which, delivered skilfully, seemed to have worked).

Here’s a formula that seems to work –

1   Find a unit of the new behaviour. This is an example of the behaviour you need to build. This becomes your building block. For example, a unit of ’building confidence in others’ might be catching someone doing something well/right/elegantly.

2   Practise the unit until it’s smooth. Do this in a safe place – learning only happens in safe places where it’s OK to make a mistake.

3   When it’s smooth, not clunky, and then take it out to the game.

Ed Percival is a business coach with Shirlaws Business Coaching www.shirlawscoaching.com