How to Improve Subconscious Programming with Improv
We all have beliefs. These beliefs often run in the background, influencing our thoughts and our actions. Sometimes we know of our beliefs. These are conscious beliefs, or beliefs we are aware of. We can have intellectual knowledge about our beliefs and embodiment of those beliefs. Or we can have intellectual knowledge about our beliefs without the embodiment of those beliefs. For instance, we can know and believe in love and compassion and yet, our actions may not reflect that intellectual belief. That’s a misalignment.
In teams we see this all the time. Someone claims to be a great listener and someone who is very collaborative and cares about other people’s ideas and opinions, and yet, is the first person to interrupt, share their own ideas, and not involve other people in creative brainstorming.
Improv Improves Our Awareness
Something great about improv is the awareness that is revealed between our beliefs, thoughts, and actions. Your actions tell it all. We see your mood, your emotions, and your actions in a scene. You can’t hide from it. It reveals any misalignments. So if you say you believe that listening is important and then we see you interrupt and diminish someone else’s words, well, that reveals a misalignment between your intellectual belief and your embodiment of that belief. Then, with that awareness there’s actual potential for change. Once you realize, “oh shoot, I am not as great of a listener as I thought I was,” then you get to decide if you want to practice improving, or not.
Intellectual Awareness Isn’t Enough
The intellectual awareness isn’t enough though. We need to practice embodying the change. Because our habits live in our programming. I’ve seen this time and time again in our pre-pandemic improv trainings.
For example, I was facilitating an Improvisational Leadership training in NYC with several participants of different ages, genders, and job titles. A woman was in a scene with the prompt
Your boss has just asked you to add something to your plate, but your plate is already full.
The scene started and the boss told the woman about the additional project. The woman instinctively responded “I’m sorry, but I am not sure … “ and continued on to mention that her plate was already full. I turned to the others watching the scene and asked “what did you notice?” They pointed out various observations and then mentioned “she started with an apology.” I asked the woman in the scene, “did you notice that you apologized?” “No,” she responded. So now we have the first step to improving…awareness. She now had the awareness that she apologized, and knew that she could come across as a more confident character and stand up for herself if she responded in a different way. I asked her how she wanted to respond, and she said “Thanks for letting me know about this new project. I have a lot on my plate right now, so I’d like to know how best to prioritize this project among my other responsibilities. Can we discuss these together to make sure we’re aligned?” Of course, it’s always easier to come up with a flawless response when we’re not in the heat of the moment. Now that we had a moment to debrief and the woman had a moment of awareness and insight, we started the scene again, from the beginning.
Even after rehearsing a new response, the woman still immediately responded with “I’m sorry…”
Even though she knew that she wanted to respond in a different way.
We started the scene a few more times until she responded in a different way. Then, she got to experience the improvised boss’s response when she responded standing up for herself.
She got the awareness, the insight about how to show up in a new and improved way, and she got to practice the new and improved way, so that she could actually experience it and embody the improvements.
In doing this, we changed the programming. We brought something that was previously subconscious (the apologizing for something she didn’t need to apologize for), into the conscious, changed it and practiced it until it stuck and could then just be another subconscious response, this time with more confidence and security in self.
Improv Improves the Programming
That’s part of the magic and power of improv to make improvements in our lives. We gain the awareness, the insight, and the practice making the improvement. We can do this in a psychologically safe, fictitious environment, because the stakes are low. When stakes are low, psychological safety is high, and we can take risks and respond and act in ways that are uncomfortable, that we’re not used to, without the same kind of fears and anxieties we have in the “real world.” We get to rewire how we think, respond, show up, so that when we do go back into the “real world” we can show up with these new and improved ways of being.
Say “yes, and” improve your alignment between your beliefs and your actions. Is there something you’ve been wanting to improve? Contact me and let’s improve it with improv comedy!
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Improve improves leaders, teams, companies and impact using a unique methodology combining improv comedy techniques with high performance coaching, research-backed frameworks, performance techniques, and decades of experience. Improve was created by entrepreneur, improv comedian, and former venture capital investor, Mary Lemmer. Learn more about our training and Mary’s background on our website.
