Three Reasons Change is Hard

In my coaching work, I interact with many people who want to make changes in their lives.  This is probably not shocking news.  After all, it's human nature to want to evolve and grow--all of which requires change.  It is also true that changing something about our lives or our interactions with someone in our lives can be extremely difficult.  Here are some of the reasons why that is:

1. Making change takes conscious, consistent effort.  We are hardwired in a way that actually makes change more work for us.  As human beings, our brains crave patterns as a way of understanding.  Our brains understand scripts and establish actions and reactions as habits.  Once something is a habit, it takes more work for us to shift it.  Here's why: when an action or set of actions fall into the habit loop, our brain is essentially on autopilot as it completes the loop.  This saves our brain energy and reduces the number of choices it has to make in any given day to a manageable number--and it makes it harder to shift our actions and change our habits.

One way to overcome this challenge is to bring your conscious attention to the pattern--and to pay close attention.  This can often require patience with yourself as you observe and take notes on or journal about the loop you want to change before you actually change it.  What's the cue?  What's the reward?  Usually what we are trying to change is the routine--but without cracking into the other two, that can be especially challenging.  Then, you can get to work on using what you know about the cue and reward to tackle the routine.

2. I think it was FDR who said something like, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and he hit the nail on the head with that one.  Change can be scary--and without even realizing we are acting out of fear, we will talk ourselves out of the very change we most want, and the actions that will help to bring it about.

Let's say, for example, that Susan doesn't like her job.  It is stifling and every day that she drives to work, she finds herself less and less enthusiastic about going.  In fact, she even starts to get mild physical symptoms at the very thought of going to work--a slight headache, a queasy stomach.  On a few different occasions she has convinced herself that the only solution is to start looking for another job--and then something happens between there and actually applying.  As she looks through ads, or works to capture her experience on her resume, she sees the holes between the list of preferred experience and her own.  She puts the resume away with half-finished job descriptions.  She never writes a cover letter for this job she worries she couldn't possibly get. 

Fear can stop us from even trying to make changes that would be good for us, and that is why we should fear it--because it can keep us stuck.  Fear stops forward movement, often because it aims to protect--which has it's place--but can also prevent us from living fully.  Someone besides FDR observed:  "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

The best strategy I know of here is letting yourself be afraid and doing something anyway.  This requires some self-awareness and some vigilance--and sometimes enlisting a close friend or family member to deliver tough love at just the right moment and call us out when we are unwittingly letting our fears stop us.  I think I'm going to write that quote about the ship on a card and post it where I will see it every day so I won't forget the sentiment.

3.  There is some tension between us as individuals and the communities of people we are part of.  We make the decision to change inside our heads and the world around us conspires to keep things the same, making it even harder to do differently.  This is really just another way of saying that reason #1 that it's hard to change applies to others as well as ourselves.

Let's say for example that you decide to interact differently with your mother.  You are sick of every conversation leading to you feeling defensive and ending in an argument.  You do some work to shift how you take in what your mother says.  You begin to shift the way you hear her and how you respond, but your mother is so used to the pattern that it seems like she is trying to start an argument at every turn. 

What to do with this challenge?  Remember that people respond to our actions much more than to what we say, so take it day by day.  The more committed we are to the new way of being or acting, the easier it will be to get other people on board with us--but accept at the outset that it will take a while--and that you will change before others change how they respond to or interact with you.  It can be helpful to know what you will say or do if the old pattern flares up.  This can give you an alternative route instead of falling into the old pattern.

What are some of the barriers you have experienced when making a change and how have you overcome them?