Why It Can Be Hard to Change
As we embark on a new year and set new resolutions, it may be helpful to re-consider the process of change. It’s fairly common for people to make attempts at change, only to have those attempts eventually peter out. And when we find ourselves back where we started, engaging in the same pattern or habit we were trying to break, we may feel discouraged and think, “Why is change so hard?”
If this sounds familiar to you, you are not alone. It is very rare for a person to take on change and to make it to the other side in one go. Most of us will go through trials and tribulations along the way, with the tendency to fall back into old habits. Since this is the season of resolutions and change, below I am providing a few thoughts to consider as you venture into your new resolution/change.
Practice creates habits.
If you think about any habits you have, you’ll notice that you likely have been engaging in them for a good length of time. That is because practice and repetition create habits. The more we engage or think in a certain way, the more we start creating a neural pathway in our brain that will make it easier for those neurons to fire the next time we engage in the habit. As time goes on, that neural pathway becomes so “well greased,” that it will easily fire, even at times without us realizing (i.e., think of things we tend to do out of reflex).
This includes any habits, including regular thought patterns we think, behavioral habits, or any habit/routine we are wishing to change. Breaking a habit isn’t so easy in that regard, because our brains have been wired so well to engage in that old habit.
But this does not mean there is no hope for change. The amazing thing about the brain is that it has the ability to create new neuro-pathways (look up neuroplasticity). You may find yourself time and again going back to the old habit, but if you are consistently engaging in the new habit you are trying to create, you are doing the work to create that new pathway in your brain. So as you are trying to take on change, know that it is normal to find yourself going back to old habits, and that it will generally take time and lots of practice to establish a new one.
There are a multitude of factors that can impact our process toward change.
Life is not always so simple as wanting something and doing it. Sometimes people are dealing with a host of things that can impact their growth journey, including medical issues, mental health issues, interpersonal struggles, lack of support, etc. We might get angry at ourselves for not being able to “just change,” but doing so is akin to getting mad at a runner with 20-pound weights attached to their legs for not running faster.
Therefore, it is important to show compassion to yourself when you find yourself struggling with change, or not getting there “fast enough.” You may have weights attached to your legs that you never realized you had. And there is no universal rule that you need to change within a specific time span. It’s okay to take your time and to focus on one step at a time.
Change can be seen as a learning experience, rather than a goal we need to achieve.
There are times when we set a specific goal for ourselves only to realize that it is quite difficult to achieve. While change will always have its setbacks, sometimes we may be setting a goal for ourselves that may not be realistic or feasible. It’s important to reflect on our process and see what it may be telling us about what works for us, or what doesn’t work for us.
For example, a person may have the goal to “always think positively.” While of course there is nothing wrong with trying to engage in more positive thinking, you may find that life is not always so binary and that there is a lot of gray in situations we encounter in our lives. Through our experience, we may come to find that being optimistic all the time is not always possible, and that our goal changes to expanding our perspective to seeing multiple pieces to the picture (rather than just focusing on a pessimistic perspective).
It often takes experiencing life to learn more about it and about ourselves. So it’s okay to shift things for yourself as you go. If anything, it may be more beneficial to look at change as a learning experience about yourself and about life.
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Whatever resolution you may have or change you are trying to take on, know that it is completely normal to experience struggles along the way. Just as climbing a mountain isn’t easy, change by nature is a hard process. But what is key in helping us through those difficulties is remembering what change entails, why it’s important to us, and recognizing it as a learning experience.
