A little story about how change will happen anyway
CHANGE IS SCARY
Why do people avoid doing the right thing for themselves, sometimes for months and even years? Change means scarcity for our limbic part of the brain, part that is responsible for survival. Something that matters to us is part of our identity and our personal story. The more it matters to us the bigger part it takes in that story. The bigger it is, the harder it will be to change it. But we have to, because our story develops and we grow, and our identity needs to grow with us.
In my clients’ lives, and in my own, regret today is the fear we haven’t conquered yesterday. We haven’t taken an opportunity to go on an adventure, or live abroad, or change careers, as fear of losing that part of ourselves was bigger than motivation to change it to something better.
Change is scary, result is not guaranteed, uncertainty is hard to deal with. When we stay where we are, already aware of an opportunity we had and perhaps even mincing some timid projections into the potential future, the What if scenario in our minds will soon go into an open loop, something we will have a hard time closing, possibly for years to come.
LIMITING BELIEFS
Limiting beliefs are a thing. We all have them as part of our own stories, weather we are aware of them or not. ‘I am not good / smart / young / old / prepared enough’, ‘I don’t deserve it’, ‘Who am I to do this’ stopped more people from change they wanted to have, than actual failures ever will.
Limiting beliefs are static statements about ourselves – but we are nothing but static, especially when we are growing intellectually or emotionally. Dragging ‘I am liked when I do what I’m told’ belief with us might make sense when we are learning social skills at school, but not much use of it when we’re negotiating our salary many years later.
We collect various beliefs as we go through life, often not quite questioning, often unwillingly, often unknowingly. A child doesn’t have critical thinking capacity and life experience to doubt the statements they hear from their care givers, but that’s when we get most of our life axioms. As for the rest of adult life…people often go on an autopilot, barely registering the conversations they have, let alone what is playing in the background or what they see on the billboard on the way to work.
Limiting beliefs can be tricky to pin down and change by ourselves and coaching has powerful tools to uncover them with the client. If you feel like this could be the right time to explore those yourself, start with this self-guided resource, join me in one of my workshops or book a session to see what it is all about.
WHY DO WE NEED TO DO THE SCARY THING?
Change is inevitable. By missing an opportunity to make a change towards the direction we care about, we leave it to chance. The circumstances we so tried to preserve eventually change on their own accord and then we must ‘deal with the change’. It will be harder doing it this time around, as secondary feelings will make it more complicated: we might be resentful about how the change is unfair, or too quick, or inconvenient, or we should have done it earlier in our lives, or there will be someone to blame, or someone depending on us to land the plane safely.
CHANGE IS ENERGY
When we change, because we want to, it comes with a different type of responsibility. Responsibility that is born out of love for this new scary thing throws you into the sea of energy which you eventually learn to swim. Responsibility that is born out of necessity to keep afloat when you’re pushed out of the way, is very very heavy. ‘I HAVE to change’ carries energy of a log – something that can stay afloat but takes no direction of its own.
THE MISSING LINK
So how DO we do the scary thing? Change potential is often instigated by the right amount of pain, the famous ‘that’s it, I have to do something about it’ moment. If we haven’t got enough pain, we can…increase it. And trust me, when I say, how uncomfortable I feel encouraging to increase pain! But hear me out please.
The missing link takes us back to the limiting beliefs. Once you identify them, one by one, in different areas of your life, answer yourself very frankly and briefly: ‘What does it cost you to hold on to this belief?’. Once you have the answer, ask the same question again and again several times until you hit the answer that causes pain. Because…it now matters too much to see and do nothing about. That’s your seed of change.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.