What makes people resist change? This comment from one of my clients made me think:
“Ah, resistant to change – who, me? My first thought about change is that I am too lazy to change. I’ve done something for so long I don’t have to give it much thought to continue doing it. If I make a conscientious decision to change something, I have to get out of my comfort zone, I have to give it more thought than I normally would and I have to hit up against not knowing how it will turn out. You’d think that if something I’d been doing hadn’t been working out well for me, I’d be more than willing to shake things up a bit, but human nature being what it is…”
But what if the resistance to change is simpler than that? What if it is simply the avoidance of the domination of the change?
If change is involved, then the ways that you have done things will have to be re-thought, you will have to put your attention on the steps to take to change whatever, since it will be new to you. Your old way of doing things has been comfortable; they required a minimum of thought. Now YOU will have to take concrete steps to make change occur. Change begins to dominate you, and YOU hate to be dominated. So, what do you do? You avoid the change. By the way, all of this reaction and inaction is not conscious, it’s was programmed into you when you were a little, tiny person. Probably about 2 years old. That was when bigger people started telling you “No” and you didn’t like it. Remember?
The best way to have change be easy is to first ask yourself: Am I resisting the domination of change? If the answer is yes, then ask: What’s in it for me? Get clear about the benefits of making the change. Are there any benefits?
Do you have things in your life that you have been putting up with, rather than changing them? Think about one thing that you would like to change, yet haven’t. See if you are avoiding the domination of change. Ask yourself: Is there anything in it for me—really—or is it just a good idea, my own or someone else’s? The answer may surprise you.
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