WHY IS CHANGE SO DIFFICULT?

If you want to get to the next point in your life you can’t continue doing the things that got you to where you are today. If we believe that statement then why do we keep doing the same things and expecting a different result? According to Einstein that is the definition of insanity.

We have to face it … we live in a changing world. EVERYTHING changes and it’s time to acknowledge the cold, hard truth … much as we’d like to, we cannot control everything that happens to us in life. We can, however, change the way we react to what happens.

One of the key reasons change might come hard has a lot to do with one of the tools your brain uses regularly. This tool helps you get through your days with the speed and accuracy you need without getting bogged down with minutia.

This tool is called habit. Think about this for a minute. How many daily activities do you do without thinking about them? Let’s take your morning routine, for example. You probably awaken at the same time every workday, using the same alarm. You stumble through the same actions like showering, grooming, eating, and beginning to move through your day.

Repetition of habits does wonderful things like create memory. But, how does your body know a good habit from a bad habit? It really doesn’t. It’s sometimes much easier to turn on your internal auto-pilot and let it run wild and free while giving no thought at all to learning new things.

Too much of this automatic behavior allows your brain to work even harder to keep things in the order it wants so it can provide the structure it thinks you want. And, it’s that hard work that contributes to what you might say is a natural aversion to change.

You might be naturally averse to change but the flip side of a saying you’ve heard before is totally true: You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

So, how do you learn new tricks? By being smart humans and using your brain’s natural tendencies to work FOR you, not AGAINST you. Identification of what you want to change is of key importance. What habits might you have that you’re struggling to hold onto when you should really be letting them go?

• Once you begin to acknowledge a change needs to take place, you’re taking your brain out of it usual repetition-loving state.
• Then you can figure out what to do.
• Then you give yourself permission to be vulnerable and start doing it.
• Then you begin taking action.
• You gain some momentum. As you continue you finally replace that old habit with a new and better one.
• You will have relapses, but it is totally within your power to:
• Learn from each relapse.

Once you’ve begun to actually already CARE about being uncomfortable and vulnerable and opening yourself up changes will occur. Outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens!

Could you and your organization use help in managing change?

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