Susan Britton MCCICF Award-Winning Coach Educator, Neuroscience-Informed ICF/SHRM Coach Training, INSEAD Executive Masters in Change, Advocate for Evolutionary Shift from “Red Zone” to “Blue Zone” for Leaders, Coaches & Fellow Humans

Why Do We Resist Change? Blame Our Brains! | Episode 2 - The Academies Coaching Resistance Series

Name: Why Do We Resist Change? Blame Our Brains! | Episode 2 - The Academies Coaching Resistance Series
Uploaded: 2022-07-15T07:00:16+00:00
Duration: 1 min 16 s
Channel: Susan Britton MCC
Description: In this segment, Susan Britton MCC introduces the brain’s role in human resistance to change, attributing it to cognitive dissonance. She defines…

15 Jul 2022 · 1 min

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1:16

In this segment, Susan Britton MCC introduces the brain’s role in human resistance to change, attributing it to cognitive dissonance. She defines cognitive dissonance as a clash between attitudes/beliefs and actions, using smoking as a clear illustration: a smoker knows smoking is harmful yet continues the behavior, creating internal conflict. She emphasizes that this dissonance is experienced physically as tension, which drains the energy needed for change. Susan signals that deeper exploration of tools to address this will follow later in the series.

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Let's look at perhaps what's going on in the brain when it comes to why we resist, every one of us as human beings. So blame the brain. Later, when we are digging into some of the tools, we'll talk more about cognitive dissonance. And basically, a fast, easy way to define that in my head is— and then hopefully in yours— I think of it as it's a conflicting attitude and action. Or conflicting beliefs and behaviors. And one of the fastest, easiest examples that a lot of people share when it comes to cognitive dissonance is that of smoking. So if someone smokes, that's the action or the behavior, and they have a ton of information that says smoking is not good for you. And so they then have this belief or this attitude that smoking is not good for you, and yet they're still acting in a way that is not good for them. So So that creates cognitive dissonance. And the really important piece to remember in all of that is that is felt in the body in some sort of tension, and it really zaps the, the energy that's available for being able to make change. So we'll go dig deeper into cognitive dissonance later.