Change…why is it so hard?

Are you struggling to make changes in your life? And why is change so hard?

There are very few of us who don’t want to make changes in some area of our life. Most of us have some ‘improvement project’ we are working on. Whether it is to lose weight, spend less, get fit, relate with less conflict, feel better about ourselves…the list can be endless.

And for most of us, it is rarely a lack of knowledge that stops us making the changes we want. We know ‘how’ to lose weight, spend less, get a new job etc. But despite this knowledge, the change itself eludes us. So, what is going on here and how can we improve our chances of making the changes we want?

It helps to understand a few things about humans and change from an evolutionary perspective. For humans to make changes, we have to adapt what we are doing, sounds obvious right? But it’s harder than you may think for us humans – adapting the way we do things takes a tremendous amount of energy.

Us humans are designed to use the least amount of energy to stay alive, our fundamental driving instinct is to survive. And it turns out that survival is about energy preservation. Staying the same - i.e. habitual ways of being - such as eating the same diet, dating the same kind of people or doing the same job – are the least energy demanding way to get through our days.

We create habits and follows patterns as humans because this is the most effective way to optimise our energy. And once we have created a habit (often done in childhood and/or with little conscious awareness) we have laid down a sort of hardwiring in our system that means we can recreate that habit with minimal effort. Think about learning to drive as an example, can you remember being a learner driver and how hard it seemed in those early hours and weeks? And now, many years later, driving feels almost instinctive. You don’t have to think about how to change gears or read road signs, because you’ve habituated these things to enable to focus on other things.

Our need to change and adapt is instigated by two things – necessity and urgency. Throughout most of our human history, we have done brave and radical things in response to necessity, usually because our survival depends on it. You remember the phrase ‘necessity is the mother of all invention’?  And often there has been urgency in the mix… change or die is a pretty strong motivator!

The problem we have in much of the modern world is that most of the changes we want in our lives don’t have that level of necessity. We aren’t going to die if we don’t change jobs/lose weight/stop arguing with our partner etc…. at least not immediately.

So, the challenge for many of us is having a sufficiently powerful motivator. We also need to give ourselves grace by acknowledging that change is intrinsically hard for humans unless it is vital to our immediate survival.

So, the first trick when making changes, is to fine tune your motivation.

This means we need to get really clear about why we want to change. We can ask ourselves, what change do I want to make? What difference it will make? What will my life feel like when I have made the change? And what will my life look like in 2, 5 or 10 years from now if nothing changes?

This part requires honest self-reflection. If we want to lose weight in the hope that it will make us look better and attract more love, then we have conflated several change goals in one. Losing weight in itself might make us feel better, but it won’t necessarily and neither will it automatically equate to attracting more love into our life. If we aren’t really clear about why we want to lose wight, as an example, we run the risk of having unrealistic expectations and vaguely defined goals, which puts a whole load of pressure on the change process.

When making important life changes, it is always better to focus on 1 changes at a time and to be clear about why this change really matters.

Without a clear vision for change, our body-mind system simply isn’t going to generate enough energy (aka motivation) to do what is required.

Change is hard but it may be that you are making it harder because you haven’t really got a clear ‘change vision’.

So, step 1 in a change project is to get really clear about what change you want to make and why, and make sure the two are directly related. If you want to lose weight to feel better about yourself so you can feel more love, you’ve got at least 3 goals in there, which need breaking down and separating out. This can sometimes look like a life audit and shouldn’t be underestimated in terms of the time and support it can require to truly examine what is going on in our lives and identify clear change goal(s).

Only once we have got really clear about our change priorities are we in a position to ‘rev up’ the motivation. We have to really want something and have sufficient motivation to pursue that goal in spite of slow progress, inevitable setbacks and all the myriad other things that can thwart our change efforts.

Desire and need are closely linked, and desire can be a very strong motivator. The problem with our desires it that they can be fickle – we can want 2 contradictory things simultaneously – i.e. we can want a long-term relationship but also desire a risqué one-night stand. We can want to be slim and nubile but can be hijacked by a compulsion for 3 chocolate eclairs. So how do we contend with our desires when they have us running all over the place like a dog following its nose?

Clarity is key, and this comes back to step 1 – a clear and compelling change goal, one that is realistic and something that we really want and can imagine having for ourselves. That last point, being able to imagine the outcomes, is especially crucial. In order for a goal to be compelling, we have to be able to imagine ourselves having that thing…. and it has to be appealing!

Visualisation is a powerful way to do this, imagine how it will feel and really invest yourself in creating an internal imaging of the you that you want to be. What will life be like for you when you have achieved the change you want? Isn’t that worth fighting for? Top tip, this never works if your ‘change vision’ is expressed in the negative “I won’t be so fat/miserable/poor etc….” It has to be a positive vision (I will feel lighter, have more fun etc) otherwise why the hell are we going to bother?

Change can sometime be seen as a bit of a dark art in the self-help/personal development space. And it is fraught with potential pitfalls. Humans are complex, and it is often true that our wants and desires are complex too. So if you are finding it really hard to establish a clear change goal, or you’ve found yourself trying and failing more times than you can remember, then it maybe that you need some support with this, or that you are not being realistic about some aspect of the change. Seek help if this is the case, from a trusted friend or professional.

And above all, be kind to yourself. You are swimming upstream when make any major life changes. Your evolutionary history isn’t exactly your greatest ally. Your capacity for honest self-reflection, ability to clearly articulate change goals, and self-compassion as you venture towards change are vital.

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