The real reason that change is hard

The real reason that change is hard

Your brain is absolutely committed to consistency.

This explanation made a huge difference to many of my clients perhaps it’ll help you too.

See their perspective up until this point was that they were inconsistent, weak willed, unmotivated or somehow didn’t want it enough.

Not in all areas of course but around those things they had consistently failed to change.

A story confirmed by most of the ‘help humans’ industry as to why they were failing to create new habits.

The truth is though that the brain is absolutely committed to consistency.

So committed in fact that if it senses that you might fail to live up to your IDENTITY in some way it will send emotions and nervous system drives to make sure you conform to that identity thus allowing you to remain consistent.

So even if you DESIRE to say NO more often, if your identity is ‘someone who says yes when asked for help’, in that moment your nervous system will DRIVE that behaviour.

So your current experience is that you are anything BUT consistent it is because there is an identity threat between you and the new desired behaviour.

Imagine your identity is as someone who ALWAYS over delivers on your work.

Then imagine that you’re trying to create an exercise habit.

It may appear to you that weak will or lack of desire is preventing you from creating the habit.

Whats really causing the problem is the work identity and what you believe is required to demonstrate it.

It’s the fear of the loss of identity that stands in the way.

The thing about identity is that most of us didn’t actively decide who we are. We were told by our parents, teachers, family, friends, community, world.

So our brain drives us to maintain an identity that we are ready to let go of. Hence the internal conflict.

So how do you shift your identity?

You get clear on what you believe

You get clear on the consequences you no longer desire

You get clear on the consequence you do desire

You SPEAK UP!

You tell the world, this is who I am now, this is what I have learned about myself and these are the new actions that align with who I am.

Place your focus on the action and you’ll always be fighting your brain and identity.

Re-image who you are and start sharing it with the world and the action will be effortless.

The more clarity you have around this identity shift and the actions that will support it the easier the new set of behaviours will be.