5 Reasons We Resist Change and Ways to Move Forward

Hey there everybody, and welcome to today's presentation on six reasons we resist change and how to move forward. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Whether you like it or not, change is a part of life. And intentional change requires a little extra planning and motivation. What do I mean by intentional change? They say necessity is the mother of invention. When we have to do something, we figure out a way to do it. We figure out a way to change or to accomplish what we need to. But sometimes we want to change because we want to change, or at least we think we want to change. If we're only about goal setting and planning, change would be easy. But the best laid plans and the best thought out goals don't necessarily come with motivation. So we need to examine what our motivation is and how we're going to get it done. It's important to remember that any change you make is going to influence the amount of time and energy you have for every other thing that's important in your life. So let's take a look at a few things. Maybe you decide that you are going to improve your nutrition or get in better shape, you're going to get healthier. Well, that's great. So how is it going to impact the other areas of your life? Well, physically at least at first, you may have some cravings. If you're used to eating junk that may not be super pleasant. You're going to have to figure out how to deal with that. It may improve your sleep or it may disrupt your sleep. I know after a really hard workout, sometimes I can fall asleep easily, but the next day when I've got muscle soreness, I don't sleep as well. Energy, you know, like I said, you're only going to have so much energy and it takes a lot of energy to exercise. If you're eating a healthier diet, you may have more energy, so it's going to impact you, not necessarily negatively. And pain. You know, if you are eating a healthier diet with more omegas, you may find that you've got less pain and inflammation. If you are working out, you may find that you've got less stiffness. If you're working out too much then, or you're pushing it really hard, you may find that you've got more pain. Does that mean you shouldn't do it? Not necessarily. You just need to figure out, you know, how am I going to cope with these, you know, discomforts that happen effectively. If you're improving your fitness or your nutrition, it is going to impact your mood, you may feel happy about what you're doing and the people that you're meeting. It may contribute to some confusion because you're not really sure, you know, is this working? Or how do I do this? You know, there's a learning curve and that takes mental energy. You may have some irritability because change is hard. And let's face it, if you're doing these things that are by all means good for you, it's also means potentially not doing some things that you really like doing that aren't so good for you. You may feel a sense of pride because, hey, you're taking care of yourself cognitively. You've got to devote energy to learning these new skills, changing your thinking styles and addressing those ruminations, those thoughts about if I only or I wish I could. The time to clean is also potentially reduced in the environment. If you are going to the gym, you know all of a sudden by the time you get to the gym, you work out and you get home, you have lost or used up, if you will, an hour, two hours or more. So when are you going to clean the environment? When are you going to adjust and do the housework? You may not have as much time to spend doing overtime at work or doing things that make money. Obviously you're going to go to work, but you may not be able to spend as much time doing overtime or clipping coupons or searching for sales, unless maybe you're doing that while you're on the treadmill. I don't know. And you may have a change in your friendship activities if you start spending more time cooking healthy meals, learning how to cook, eating better, or going to the gym. If you used to do any of those things with your friends in an unhealthy way, then you may have to change the way you do them. You go to healthier restaurants, you learn to cook together, you work out together. That can be. You can make that a win win. But you're not going to have the same amount of time to spend doing, if you will, unhealthy activities together. There may be reduced time for socialization, and you may find that with some people, your support actually goes down. People just don't want to. They don't want to do that, they don't want to exercise, they don't want to eat healthy, they don't want to do whatever. Okay? So you may lose a little bit of support from them, but you may gain support from new acquaintances, new friends that you make, people that you are associating with. And you may find that it improves your relationship with yourself as you move toward and start accomplishing this goal. Now you can go through the impacts of change for anything. I have two more here. I'm not going to go through them right now. But for example, if you decide that you're going to become more patient, how does it affect you? Physically, affectively, cognitively, environmentally, and interpersonally? If you decide you're going to address your addiction or your depression, you can make lists of or awareness. Become aware of how it's going to impact you. This helps you identify things that you might need to address in order to prevent any obstacles in your way. But it can also help you identify motivations for making this change. Change is hard, okay. That's one of the reasons that we don't often successfully make intentional change. It's hard. A mentor of mine said change causes crisis and crisis causes change. And I have used that phrase for the past 30 years working with people. When we change, it causes us a certain amount of discomfort. Now, it may be a little bit of crisis, it may not be an overwhelming crisis, but change causes discomfort. And as I said, necessity is the mother of invention. Discomfort or crisis causes change. So in this particular case, we're going to assume that it's an intentional change. You're not already experiencing distress. You've decided that you want to change, you want to move forward. Most people operate on auto, autopilot and mindful intentional living takes energy. When you are making a change, you've got to turn off that autopilot. You can't follow that same path every single day. You can't do those same things that you used to do every single day because you have decided to make a change. You've got to actually rewire your behavioral mental circuits in order to accomplish that change. Which means you've got to live intentionally. You've got to think about it when you wake up in the morning and say, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go to the gym this afternoon, which means I have to pack my bag before I leave or whatever it is that you're going to do. Think of change as a job. And I tell people this that are patients of mine as well as people that I am coaching. Just recognize that change is hard. It takes energy, it takes time. It's a job. Maybe not a full time job, depending on how hard the change, but it is a job. So think of it like that. It's not just another thing that you add to the list or something that magically happens. Something you got to work at designate time and energy to whatever change you're going to make for for at least two months. The first month, you're just really laying the foundation and creating those neural and behavioral circuits. The second month is when you really start to solidify them, when it starts to become more automatic. Another reason people resist change is fear of failure. You know, I hate failure. I think most of us hate failure when we think of it as a negative. If we recognize that failure is a possibility. Okay, well, that can be scary because most of us have been taught that failure is not okay. So we need to redefine our relationship with failure and with success. Success is not necessarily everything it's cracked up to be. So think about, what does failure mean? Well, it could mean that you didn't do it this time, you weren't successful at accomplishing it. Whatever it is this time, it doesn't mean you can never accomplish it just means you didn't do it this time. You have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes by reviewing the experience. And this is one of the things I talk about with people who have relapsed. Okay, you relapsed. You're back. Let's learn from this. What? What did we miss the last time when creating a relapse prevention plan? What did you miss over the past six months? What things led up to this relapse? It didn't come from out of the blue. So what can you learn from this experience to maybe prevent it from happening again? And how have past failures. I know it's a tough word. How have past failures strengthened you and prepared you for today? We have failed at things all of our life. From the time you were literally crawling, you tried to stand up, you tried to walk, and you probably fell on your bum. Okay? Then you got back up. You didn't go, oh, I failed. I'm never gonna walk. You got up and, you know, grabbed onto something and tried it again. You said, okay, well, maybe I need to hold on to the sofa as I'm walking right now until I figure this out a little bit more. So you learned from it. Separate failure as a person from failure at a task or to achieve a goal. Think about what makes you a good person, what makes you lovable? And if it's hard to think about, you think about your child or your best friend. What makes them a good person or lovable? And does failing to achieve a goal or failing at a task negate any of that? Do you love your children or your friends any less if they fail at something if they don't get a promotion or if they fail a test or whatever it is, my guess is no. And I love this one. Find failure mentors and there are a bunch online that you can find and it can be a fun little activity to do maybe as a family. Everybody finds one failure mentor and that is somebody who's successful, who has failed in the past. And guess what? You're not going to find successful people who haven't failed. You know, whether it, well, you can think of anybody you want to who's successful, from Oprah to Einstein, and they've all failed in their journey to success. Michael Jordan is one of my favorites. He says, On 26 occasions I've been entrusted to take the game winning shot and I missed. I have failed repeatedly and that is why I succeed. I love that quote. I love that quote. I have failed repeatedly and that is why I have six. And that is why I succeed. I learn, basically, he's saying he learns from it. It makes him stronger. Steven Spielberg was allegedly rejected twice by the California School of Cinematic Arts. And where is he now? Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein both struggled in school, but both of them, we know, were phenomenally brilliant people. And finally, define the actual costs or risks of failure. If you fail at this attempt, what are the realistic consequences? If you fail at this thing right now, what are the realistic consequences? Yeah, it will suck, it will hurt, it will be disappointing. But are you going to be less lovable? Are you going to lose things that are important to your survival? Or are you, is your self esteem or your ego going to take a hit? Will it prevent you? Will losing this prevent you from having food, shelter or love? If so, what can you do to avoid that? You know, some people have a big risk and if they fail at it, they're taking a big risk. And if they fail, maybe they lose their job, which means, you know, theoretically, if they're living to paycheck to paycheck, they may lose their house. Okay, well there's a big risk there. So what can you do to mitigate that before you take the big risk? Help us continue to make practical tools available to everybody by supporting the channel. You can donate any amount and any amount is helpful@docsnipes.com donate or on cash app Doc Snipes. You can become a member of the YouTube channel and get perks. So to do that, go to doc snipes.com join. You can purchase a super thanks on any video you find particularly helpful or if you're a counselor and you happen to need continuing education, get your CEUs from allce.com another thing that keeps us from moving forward is lack of knowledge. What is your overall goal? If you don't know what your overall goal is, if you don't know what the destination is, how do you know how to get there? Is your overall goal to be more patient, to be tidier, to be happier, to get a better job? What is it that you are hoping to achieve? Okay, that's your overall goal. What's your goal for this month? Then break it down. And what's a smaller goal that you can achieve this week? Then break it down. And what is a smaller goal you can achieve today? So patience. Maybe today's goal is to be patient for an hour or to be patient at least 80% of the time. And the goal for this week would be to be patient, you know, 80% of the time, I don't know. But setting these goals so you can have these incremental anchor points, what knowledge do you need to achieve these goals? Well, setting goals is great. Knowing where you're going is wonderful. But if you don't know how to get there, it's going to be a problem. So that would be like saying, okay, I want to drive cross country, but you don't know how to drive yet. Or you have no idea how to read a map, which, that's a little bit easier with Google, but you get my point. So what knowledge do you need about the issue about how to be more patient, about how to be more organized? Maybe you just don't even know where to start. What knowledge do you need about the process? Okay, well, I know what patience looks like and I know some of the reasons people aren't patient. But how do I become patient? How do I do this? And then knowledge about yourself as it relates to this issue and your motivation to change. So why is it that I want to be patient? Why is it that I am impatient with people? And which of the processes, which of the hows will work for me? Not every technique works for every person. So I need to know about the issue. I need to know about ways to accomplish my goal and address the issue. And then I need to know about specifically, how does this relate to me, which ones will work for me? And that's all knowledge people need in order to successfully achieve their goals. Another reason we fail to change is just being plum overwhelmed. And so often I talk to people who are like, yeah, I really, I want to get in shape or I want to lose weight or I want to be happier, but I just, I don't have the energy. I don't know where to start, and I don't have one ounce of energy left. All right, I hear you. Change is hard and it does require energy and it's exhausting. Change is more like driving in city traffic versus driving on the interstate consuming. So it's important to recognize that you're getting ready to take on a task that is not easy and it will require time and energy. So figure out how much time and energy the this change will take you each day. How much time do you need to devote to it and to addressing any impacts of it? And add your daily change goals to your schedule. If you want to go to the gym, if you want to learn how to cook, if you want to improve your knowledge of something. So you, you're going to read a certain amount of a book every day, whatever it is, put that in your schedule. It's not something that's just plopped on top of everything else. It's a job. So you start your job at 3:00pm and you end this job at 5:00pm for example, if it's something that you can do in a concise period of time. And then eliminate, delegate and simplify where needed. Like I said, you got to come up with time and energy. And most people, regardless of how they, how happy or depressed or anxious they are, when they get ready to make a change, they've already filled up every single hour of the day and they're using their energy. So you got to figure out, okay, where can I squeak this in? And what can go. What can go? And sometimes it just, you have to be sort of ruthless, if you will, about time management and saying, yeah, okay, for the next two months. This is going to have to go. For the next two months, I'm going to have to simplify doing this. I'm not going to make gourmet, gourmet meals every every night. I'm going to make casseroles. I am not going to do everybody's laundry for the next two months. Y' all need to do your own laundry. Whatever it is that you need to do in order to free up that time is important. If you don't make the time, if you don't make the energy, you are going to fail. If you're already feeling overwhelmed, adjust your goals until you think, all right, I can do that, and then focus on the goal for today. I have a habit. I'm a big list person and I have a habit of getting all these grand ideas and I make this schedule where everything is scheduled in, and it's like down to the second almost, because I'm trying to squeeze so much into a day. And in theory, it's a great plan, but I look at it and I'm like, I can't breathe. You know, everything is so tightly packed in. I'm like, I might be able to keep that pace up for a day or two, maybe a week, but I certainly can't keep that up in the long haul. So then I need to step back and go, okay, well, instead of doing these five things all @ once, I may need to do one thing at a time and do all five of them one after another. And I hate that. You know, I'll be honest. I am one of those people who want. Wants it done and wants it done yesterday. So saying, you know, I can't get everything done all at once is really hard for me. But when I try to do all five things at the same time, either I don't do them well or. And. Or I get overwhelmed and I do it and I keep up that pace for a week, maybe two weeks, and then I just run out of gas. I'm done. And that is not how you succeed. And lack of motivation. I mentioned motivation at the beginning. We're going to finish with motivation. It is hard to get motivated to do something that's hard, exhausting, and time consuming. You look at it and you're like, oh, wow, I'd really rather binge watch something on Netflix. It's important to recognize. Go back to that chart we were talking about. Recognize the benefits of staying the same. It's easier, it's less taxing, and it doesn't take as much time to continue doing what you're doing. But there are drawbacks. There's a reason you want to make the change. So you've got to highlight the benefits to change as well. All right, Going to the gym, that's harder and a lot more time consuming than going home after work and sitting on the sofa and watching Netflix. That's true. It may not be quite as much fun either. However, if I go to the gym, I'm going to have more energy. I'm going to sleep better, I'm going to feel better about myself because I'm in better physical shape. So I'm highlighting the benefits to change. And I'm also going to figure out, okay, how can I. Well, I'll get to that in a minute. Highlight the drawbacks to sit. Staying the same. Why don't I want to continue to come home and sit down and binge watch. What are the reasons that I want to change minimum, minimize the benefits of staying the same and the drawbacks to change? So let's go back to that Netflix binge watching. I know I watch a lot of tv. I'll admit it. However, you don't have to watch Netflix on the sofa. You can watch Netflix while you're on the elliptical machine or on the treadmill. You know, obviously you can't do it if you're just out walking. You can listen to your favorite music while you are working out. So take whatever it is you think you're going to miss and say, how can I combine this? How can I fit this in in. In order to feel. So I'm feeling less deprived when I am engaging in my new behaviors. Lack of energy. Well, where can you save energy? How can you work smarter? You know, maybe my husband used to laugh at me and then they actually started selling them the, the little Swiffer shoes that you can wear. We have animals and there's always dust all over the place. And I used to tie microfibers around my shoes. And, you know, as I walked around the house, I'd clean up some of the debris. Well, a couple years after that, I should have patented it. Of course, a couple years after that, they actually came out with Swiffer shoes. And I was like, see, not so crazy. Now work smarter. If you are thinking about cooking instead of cooking from scratch, you know, yeah, may. Maybe it's ideal to do that, but how can you make it easier? For example, I cook. And sorry for any of you who find this offensive. I cook all my pasta and all of my rice and beans on the same day every week. And then I can use it in different dishes throughout the week. But it saves me from having to clean up all those dishes every single time. It saves me time every day because those are the things that take the longest to cook. And so it's easier to just kind of throw things together, eliminate unnecessary things and distractions. What is unnecessary? And there may be things that you want to do, but are they necessary? We live on a farm. Would I like to mow the. The pasture every single week? Well, yeah, sometimes. However, is it necessary? No, it's not. We can mow every other week and it looks just fine. Thank you very much. Delegate when possible. Who else in your household can help you out? How can you get somebody else to do it, like doing click and pull instead of doing the shopping yourself? And simplify. How can you make it Whatever you're doing in life, simpler. How can you make it go well more easily instead of. Again, instead of cooking from scratch, get it from a box. I know it's awful, but it saves time, you know? Buy soup in a can instead of making soup. Is it healthier, potentially, to make your own? Sure. Okay, if you're going to do that, then make a whole vat of it at once and freeze it so you don't have to make it every single time. Gain energy by maintaining your circadian rhythms. Learn how to attend to that. Get quality sleep. Do a sleep hygiene assessment. Make sure that you're squeaking out every little bit of energy you can by getting good sleep. Eat healthfully and stay hydrated, because that helps a lot with energy. Manage your stress. Mental stress and emotional stress sucks your energy dry. So make sure that you are managing your stress as much as possible. Ask yourself. When you start getting stressed about something. Ask yourself, is this worth my energy? And improve your motivation. When we're more motivated, our dopamine goes up. Dopamine increases are associated with, guess what? Increased energy. When change is something that you want to do, not something that you have to do, it can be more difficult to get motivated and stay that way. We often stay the same if we're basically getting our needs met. When my son was little, he was pushing two and he still really wasn't speaking much. And I was really concerned. And I asked a pediatrician about it, and the pediatrician looked at me and he said, is he getting his needs met? And I was aghast. I was like, of course I'm meeting his needs. He's getting all the food he needs. You know, he gets everything he needs. And the pediatrician was like, well, okay, when he's not, he'll speak up. When he needs something, he'll tell you. And sure enough, as soon as he started school, he started talking and didn't stop. When you want to do something, your dopamine and energy levels are lower than when you have to do something. And bypass all that overthinking and just do it. When you're in fight or flee, your dopamine levels go up. Your dopamine says, hey, we want to focus on getting the heck out of here and surviving. We want to survive. So there's not time to think about, should I. How should I do this? But when you want to do something, you have a little bit more time and it's more important to actually sort of manually if you will intentionally increase your dopamine, increase your motivation reasons you may resist change include well, it's hard and it can be uncomfortable. You may fear failure. You may not have the necessary knowledge or skills yet you may already be overwhelmed. And you've got to figure out, oh, my gosh, how am I going to make this work? Or you're not motivated and lack the energy, which, again, can be addressed with a few relatively simple.