That’s amazingly true for life itself. Pretty early on (grade school, usually) we figure out our personal strategy to cope with that big, muddy world out there. We choose a rut and stay there, gripping the wheel and praying we don’t lose traction altogether.

And the big news is, unless something changes, there’s no way to leave that rut til the road ends. After all, it’s gotten us this far! We get incredibly attached to our ruts, even if they’re deep, muddy, and dangerous.

In our firm’s consulting work enabling positive change for organizations, there’s a formula describing what it takes to overcome resistance to change. It was first devised by a man named Becker, and it’s proven remarkably true. Here it is:

In other words, D times V times F together are greater than resistance (the need to stay in our rut).

D is Discontent. V is a vision of where you’re trying to go. And F is the first action steps in a plan to get there.

For organizations to change, there has to be a general fed-upness with the way things are now. But that’s not enough by itself to get out of a rut. The organization also needs a shared vision of a better future – a clear idea of what a better way looks like. And finally, the organization needs to have some definite first steps, the beginning of an action plan.

In other words, people have to be convinced 1) they have to change 2) they have something positive to aim at and 3) that change is actually possible, as shown by the first steps. If you don’t have all three of these, even the best-intentioned change plan will fail.

This formula applies just fine to organizations. I’m convinced that it applies equally well to you and me as individuals.

Changes are scary and ruts, however uncomfortable, are familiar… and they’ve gotten us this far, haven’t they? Unless something pretty serious happens (D in the formula) to convince us we HAVE to change, we won’t.

And then, once that’s happened, we have to figure out what we want to change into… that is, what we COULD BE if things were different. (V in the formula). That’s where goal setting and retreats and talking with friends, coaches, or counselors are so important — these activities let us see what is possible, if we succeed in changing. Planning systems like Life Balance or Franklin Covey or books like What Color is Your Parachute insist on this kind of goal setting and can be very helpful in letting us see what real change can do for us.

Finally, there’s action planning, laying out and taking those first tentative steps toward the change we want. It’s really important that these steps succeed, because if they do, we come to believe that change is truly possible for us. And without that belief, we will sometimes die before making any truly profound change, even if it would save our lives.

Once change begins to succeed, and an individual is convinced it’s possible to succeed by living or doing things in the new way, change can truly take root. It still needs nourishment and support, but it CAN succeed.

This can take a long time. There’s lots of study about habits of effective people and how adults learn, and it can be a complicated process. But once the DVF formula has been experienced, organizations and individuals alike can choose new ruts. Together, the three elements in the formula comprise a “teachable moment” when individuals or organizations experience a small miracle — the freedom to choose how they will live from this day forward.