Strategies for Motivating Transformation

I've checked into Alan Atkisson some more. Haven't yet read his book, although Sean has...here's a review
"Believing Cassandra is really interesting, clarifying and inspiring. Read it and you'll not only know how to think sustainability and do sustainability—you'll know how to dance, sing and laugh it as well. At the same time, the ideas are dead serious—and I mean dead. If we don't get it right, this sustainability thing, much will die in our clumsy human hands. Alan AtKisson gives us tools to understand where we are, where we're headed and how to change. What could be better—an important book that's a great read."
—Vicki Robin, co-author of Your Money or Your Life

In Believing Cassandra, titled after Cassandra, the beautiful daughter of Priam, the last king of Troy, Apollo gifted her the ability to see the future. When she refused his special favors, he cursed her gift, so no one would believe her prophecies. The Greek myth mirrors what environmentalists have been sadly up against since at least 1972, with Donella Meadow's book Beyond Limits, and the 30-year updated version Limits to Growth in which the authors poignantly explain, with a special equation, that its not feasibly possible to survive at this pace of consumption and we cannot continue using resources at the current rates. The premise, here, is believe Cassandra!
Well, now that we believe Cassandra-come on with The Great Global Warming Swindle people- Bleak, maybe. Choice, maybe not- might as well be on the party boat if you catch my drift. Get out there, and be a feverish force of change and positivity.

3 Strategies for motivating transformation
Promote the new, critique the old, and facilitate the switch
1. Promote the new: Brainstorm the percieved value of the new way. Explicitly. Blog it, mindmap it, list it, write a song, draw it. whatever you're into. Perceived here means what is meaningful to you, not what you're supposed to feel or supposed to appreciate. It may look like a systems map where the effects ripple throughout other parts of your life. Another lens to run the new idea, or change you want to make through is Max-Neef's 9 Basic Needs. They are protection, subsistence, identity, affection, understanding, participation, idleness, creativity, and freedom per Max Neef. How well does is satisfy these? My friend Georges Dyer expliains it a bit more here- 9 Universal Needs.
2. critique the old: Then you do the same for the 'perceived' value of the old way.
3. perceived cost of the change: List, mindmap - dig down and pull out what makes us squirm, emotionally, financially...At what espense is it to you to change?
4. Substract the value of the old way from the value of the new way and hopefully its greater than the perceived cost of change. Its not so much about hard numbers, rather if you believe in the benefit.
5. facilitate the switch and make it easy to change the behavior, so you lower the perceived cost to zero and if you're crafty the costs removed- free up space for other satisfiers, clean out the closets so to speak. Open up to opportunity.

Five filters to run the idea or innovation through:
1. Relative advantage- How do the benefits weigh agaist the costs?
2. Complexity- How difficult is the concept to understand
3. Trialabiliy- Can it be tried, scrutinized, and then returned, or droppped?
4. Observability- Are the results observable? Is there appropriate feedback? or lots of delay?
5. Compatibility-is it compatible with your values and your vision of a successful future?

This method can apply to something small, like shifting to organics- something personal, like wanting to run more, or to a big innovation or decision, like changing a job...any level. I'll let you know how it goes.