Why Change Can Be So Hard

It is now 2018 and the start of a new year.  For many of us, it represents a time to look back on a year of accomplishments and success.  It also allows us to reflect on things we wish we could have accomplished yet maybe we fell short in some way.   We may look toward the next 12 months as an opportunity to move past the barriers that prevented us from making the changes we wanted to make in the previous year.  This new year will be different, right?  This year will be better?  You will be better?   Maybe this sounds familiar to you?   Are you contemplating making some changes for yourself in the New Year?  Is this how you remember thinking last year, and maybe the year before that?  Reflecting back on failed New Year’s resolutions is enough to make the most motivated person give up before they start in their attempts at change.
Change can be very difficult.  Resistance to change is very common, even though that person recognizes that change can be very beneficial to them.   It is one reason that as a counselor I tend to not be heavy on advice-giving when with a client.  I recognize that for every miraculous and truly spectacular solution I provide to a client (in my humble opinion), I am likely to be met with an equally rational and well-considered problem with any solution that I am able to conjure.    Why?  This is largely  because people can be strongly resistant to change, even when they see the benefits of change.  There are many reasons for this.  

Defining the Problem  Identifying the problem that requires change  is the first step to making a change for yourself.  However, if you don’t know what the problem is, or if you falsely identify the change that needs to take place, positive change may be doomed from the start.  The overworked, underpaid, heavily drinking husband might think that a six-pack per/day is just what he needs to cope with the stress of everyday life.  He might think that, “If my wife would just leave me alone in the evening and stop complaining about my drinking, everything will be fine!”  The person that works out aggressively every day for 2 or more hours a day in order to achieve their fitness goals and lose weight  may not achieve the goals that they want if they continue to eat ravenously after every workout or when they eat to mask painful feelings.   The mother that knows that yelling at her children is hurting her relationship with them may show some insight into this unhelpful behavior until she begins to justify this behavior by thinking “My children are simply hard-headed and this is the only thing that works.”   She misses the possibility that yelling at them may contribute to resentful feelings they experience that influences oppositional behavior.  Sometimes we are not always as insightful about our own behaviors that require change until we hear enough complaints or concerns from friends or loved ones and it eventually sinks in that the problem is within ourselves, not external to us.  
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Old Habits    The old adage, “Old habits die hard.”  is real!     Isaac Newton knew this.  “An object in motion tends to stay in motion.”    We are creatures of routine and habit.   It is often hard to break from that routine.   There is a ton of research that shows that in order for a behavior to become a habit, it requires that behavior to be repeated, consistently, generally over a long period of time.   The time it takes for a behavior to become a habit varies widely and is largely dependent upon the behavior.    The more complex the behavior, the longer it takes for the behavior to become routine.   For example, in the book by Jeremy Dean, “Making Habits, Breaking Habits”, it was suggested  that if you wanted to routinely drink a glass of water after breakfast every morning, it took approximately 3 weeks.  If you wanted to do 50 sit-ups in the morning, this could take up to two months before it becomes a habit.  More complex behaviors can take nearly a year before they can become a habit.  While old habits are hard to break, it appears that forming new ones can be just as formidable.  

Ambivalence   According to Google’s dictionary, ambivalence “is the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.”   I like to think of ambivalence as holding two seemingly opposing ideas in your mind at the same time.    For example, “I want that nice big piece of chocolate cake.” while simultaneously telling yourself that “I know it is not good for me and I really shouldn’t eat it.”  Ambivalence is also very prevalent in the world of addiction.   “I want a drink.”  vs. “I want to quit drinking.”    In reality, we tend to gravitate toward those behaviors that are harmful to us if we perceive some benefit from them, as long as that benefit is perceived as greater than any cost or consequence we experience from the behavior.  It is only when the consequence is perceived to be greater than the benefit of that behavior that we even contemplate change.   Weighing short term consequences against long term benefits of change, (or long term consequences of not changing), can help one push through ambivalence and move toward change.  
Fear   This can take the form of lack of confidence in oneself.   “I’m not good enough.”  “I don’t have what it takes to make this happen for me.   Negative emotions are powerful motivators, but they often  motivate us in the wrong direction. According to one study by McGregor & Elliot,  http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167204271420   their results, “demonstrated that individuals high in fear of failure reported greater shame upon a perceived failure experience than those low in fear of failure.”    Taken another way, if you have experienced failure in the past, (pretty much all of us), and have a high sense of fear of failure, this can have a dramatic influence in making any further attempts at change.   It would not be difficult to assume that those that have a high fear of failure also experience poor self confidence. “ I’m not good enough.”   “I have little control or influence over what happens to me.”  It is my experience that those individuals that struggle with poor self-confidence tend to gravitate toward more negative thoughts and feelings that lead to discounting or ignoring  any evidence to the contrary.   Thus the person tends to exhibit thinking fallacies or cognitive distortions.  “I always fail.”   “I’m totally worthless”  “Nothing good ever happens to me.”   Thoughts influence feelings.   The person that exhibits strong tendencies to think negatively about themselves will experience shame, fear, guilt, and self-loathing.   Those feelings then influence that person’s behavior, and a sense of being helpless to change.   Can you imagine how a person will respond to a desire to change if they experience this kind of negative thinking?  Fear to take risks is what prevents us from moving forward.  The famous author J. K Rowling once said,   “Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I've met people who don't want to try for fear of failing.”

Need for Immediate Gratification     Let’s face it, we live in a world where results are expected right away.   We seem to be running short on time in our increasingly busy lives;  and in our frenzied lives, if we run into  obstacles that impede us in our goals, we make a judgment call about whether or not we are wasting our time, and may abandon our attempts.   Other times we may just get impatient, and if it doesn’t work as quickly as we would like, or as easily as we would want, we simply abandon our efforts and cling to a likely irrational belief that “it will never work!”  “Why try?”   “No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who’s always had everything work out for them with zero struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don’t exist.” - Chris Hardwick

I must be perfect  Perfectionistic thinking is another kind of distorted thinking that may prevent someone from achieving their goals.  A perfectionist on the one hand can work very hard toward their ambitions.   Yet, for many, this kind of thinking can also contribute to an irrational  sense of failure.  “If I don’t do it perfectly than I have failed.”   A sense of failure often prevents you from persisting in your attempts at success.   For a perfectionist, there is no “good enough.”    It either has to be perfect or there is no success.  Someone once said to me,  “Don’t make Perfect the enemy of Good.”   Sometimes Good, is good enough!   
Unmet needs & emotional pain     In order to solve a problem, work toward change, you must first understand what the problem is before applying the correct solution (or solutions).  For many, I find that unmet needs and emotional pain is the crux for their inability to change.   One might tell themselves, “I can’t stop drinking because I’m not strong enough.”   “Alcohol gives me what I need and helps relieve stress/anxiety/pain.”    So often I experience clients in emotional pain, struggling with change because they have experienced so much emotional pain or adversity, that they continue to engage in unwanted behavior because it fills an emotional need, or masks emotional pain.   Often that behavior is a way to avoid a feeling.   “I’m too stressed.  I need a cigarette.”   “It's been a rough day, a pint of Mint Chocolate Chip is just what I NEED right now.”    Those that avoid emotional pain by engaging in harmful behaviors don’t lessen their emotional pain, they only prolong and potentially compound it.  The often develop unhealthy habits that lead to other consequences, thereby increasing their emotional pain.   While we all have feelings, we are not defined by them.  We have feelings however we are not our feelings.    Feelings are fleeting.  They come and go.   The first step to managing emotional pain is not to avoid it, but to allow yourself permission to be sad, hurt, angry, frustrated, or unhappy.   Many people, while in the midst of a powerful emotional experience, fail to recognize that “This too shall pass.”   They simply tell themselves that their experience in the moment is intolerable, and they want it gone as quickly as possible, thereby resorting to some vice that numbs their experience, rather than confronting and working through their feelings.   You have the RIGHT to feel.   Give yourself permission to do so, so that change can happen for you.  

If you are thinking about making some changes, or have set some New Year’s resolutions this year,  I encourage you to read my blog I wrote a couple of years ago,  I Challenge you to NOT Make Any New Year’s Resolutions This Year - Success in Achieving Your Goals.

I wish you much success in the new year!