Why is change sooo hard?

A lot of people like the idea of change. We like imagining what our lives could look like if we were different. Maybe we'd be more confident, less anxious, more disciplined, better at setting boundaries, more successful, healthier, or finally doing the thing we've been saying we're going to do for years. The harder part is figuring out how to change and how to sustain changes. That is where a lot of our enthusiasm tends to disappear.

I think one reason change is so hard is that we often talk about it as though we are starting with a blank slate. But we aren't blank slates. We have personalities, histories, habits, beliefs, relationships, environments, and ways of responding to the world that have been developing for decades. So before we even talk about changing something, we have to understand what we're actually working with.

Personality — What probably isn’t going to change, and change is learning to accept yourself

The first thing we need to figure out is what we probably aren't going to change very much. There are aspects of our personality that tend to be relatively stable, especially as we get older. Some people are naturally more introverted, some more extroverted. Some are more agreeable, some more skeptical. Some are naturally more structured and conscientious, while others are more spontaneous and flexible.

My personality hasn't changed much over the years. I still don't like small talk, and I still find big social gatherings with little substance exhausting. I'm still curious, I still love exploring new ideas, and I still get excited when I discover a different way of looking at something. There are probably things about myself that have become more flexible over the years, but the underlying preferences and tendencies are still pretty recognizable. I don't think I've become a fundamentally different person; I've become more comfortable understanding and accepting the person I already am.

I think of personality a little like a rubber band. There is some flexibility, and you can stretch it, but there is still a limit to how far it is going to go before it snaps back. The more rigid our personality patterns are, the less flexibility we tend to have. The more psychologically flexible we are, the more room there is for adaptation.

This is part of why some people are extremely difficult to change. Take someone with very rigid narcissistic patterns. If a person has a strong need to protect their self-image, has very little tolerance for criticism, consistently blames other people, and has little capacity to reflect on their own contribution to a problem, there isn't much room for change there. Unfortunately, many people have waisted years of hoping that someone will change and anyone that's been around these personality styles knows how the story goes here....

Adaptations and Protective Strategies — These can change, but not overnight

But a lot of what we want to change isn't necessarily our personality. It's the adaptations we developed in response to our environment. Maybe you became a people pleaser because keeping other people happy felt like the safest way to navigate relationships. Maybe you became a perfectionist because mistakes brought criticism, shame, or disappointment. Maybe you're actually an introvert but learned to act extroverted because you believed successful people were supposed to be outgoing and charismatic. Maybe you became hyper-independent because depending on other people didn't feel particularly safe or reliable. At some point, these behaviors made sense. They helped you get through something, fit in somewhere, avoid conflict, receive approval, or simply survive your environment.

The interesting thing is that we eventually stop experiencing these adaptations as adaptations. We just experience them as ourselves. You don't necessarily think, "I'm people pleasing because I learned that other people's disappointment is dangerous." You might simply think, "I'm a nice person." You don't necessarily think, "I'm being perfectionistic because I learned that mistakes are unacceptable." You think, "I just have high standards." You don't necessarily think, "I'm performing extroversion because I've spent years believing that being quiet will hold me back." You might think, "I need to be more outgoing."

Awareness can be a huge shift because suddenly you can see the difference between who you are and what you learned to do. You might realize, "Oh, this isn't necessarily my personality. This is something I developed." But this is also where a lot of people get stuck. We become very good at understanding ourselves without actually doing anything differently. We can explain exactly where our people pleasing came from, understand our perfectionism, anxious attachment, identify our fear of disappointing people, and recognize the childhood or relational experiences that shaped us, while continuing to behave in exactly the same way.

Understanding a pattern isn't the same thing as integrating new behavior . At some point, you have to behave differently. You have to experience what happens when you say no and someone is disappointed. You have to make a mistake without immediately trying to fix everyone's perception of you. You have to let something be good enough instead of perfect. You have to allow yourself to be quiet in a room without forcing yourself to perform. That is where the work gets much harder because now you're no longer just thinking about change. You're actually experiencing the discomfort that your old pattern was designed to protect you from.

Behavior — What you can start changing today, but won’t be easy to maintain

Then we get to behavior, which is probably the part most people want to talk about first. What do I actually do?

• Start exercising.

• Apply for the job.

• Have the conversation.

• Put your phone down.

• Start the business.

• Go to therapy.

• Write every day.

• Wake up earlier.

The good thing about behavior is that you can usually start today. The frustrating thing is that starting is often much easier than maintaining.

Think about New Year's resolutions. On January 1st, you can be completely convinced that this is the year everything is going to be different. "new year new you" You feel motivated. You have a vision of yourself. You buy the gym membership, download the app, make the meal plan, and feel like a new person. Then a few weeks later you're tired, work is stressful, the weather is terrible, and you really don't feel like going to the gym. This is where one of the biggest problems with change shows up: we make our mood responsible for our behavior.

This is why meaningful change is often much less sexy than we imagine it will be. There usually isn't some dramatic moment where you suddenly become a completely different person. There are small decisions that nobody sees. You say no. You go to the gym even though you don't feel like it. You send the email you've been avoiding. You have the uncomfortable conversation. You go to bed instead of staying up scrolling. You tolerate someone being disappointed with you. You make a mistake and don't spend the next three days beating yourself up about it. None of these things are particularly impressive on their own, and there probably won't be anyone around to give you a medal. But repeated often enough, they start creating a different way of living.

Another problem is that we often want change without wanting to give anything up. We want to lose fifty pounds but don't want to change what we eat or exercise. We want a different career but don't want to tolerate uncertainty or start over. We want better relationships but don't want anyone to be disappointed with us. We want more time but don't want to say no to anything. We want to be more confident but don't want to risk looking stupid. We want all of the benefits of a different life while keeping all of the behaviors and conveniences that created our current one.

Questions to take away

What parts of me are relatively stable, and what do I need to accept rather than change?

What behaviors or patterns did I learn because they helped me adapt to my environment?

What am I now aware of but still haven't integrated into how I actually behave?

What small behavior can I start practicing today, even when I don't feel like it?

This article was inspired in part by Mark Manson's podcast, "How We Change," which got me thinking more about the different layers involved in meaningful change and why knowing what we want to change is often much easier than actually changing it. If something in this article resonated with you and you want support working through your own patterns, I’d be happy to work with you as a coach. Change can be difficult to navigate on your own, especially when you’re trying to understand what is actually within your control and what needs to be accepted rather than changed.

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