Did you know you’re probably self sabotaging your goals?
I recently learned of a physiological principle called “avoidance theory” where, even if a change to a person is for the good, they naturally avoid changing at all?
And therefore they avoid taking any action to make the change.
There are a couple of reasons we avoid change.
One is chemical/biological.
Your brain creates very strong neural pathways in the brain, “physical” connections, to make behaviours faster and easier to repeat.
It’s why it’s exhausting to learn a new skill, but something you’ve done for years is easy.
The brain builds those pathways to save energy.
Change requires new behaviours, which means it requires new pathways, which means it requires energy and calories to make those pathways.
Your brain is greedy and lazy. It doesn’t want to expend energy creating new neural pathways.
The second reason is fear of the unknown.
Yes, your current situation or life might suck.
But, if you really asked yourself, you’re probably willing to put up with the bad parts because if challenged on your current life, you’d probably say it was the most practical way of living for you.
So a change, even if it is for the better, is often regarded as impractical.
But that’s only really because you could be in a worse situation if you change.
“Better the devil you know” kind of thing.
You fear being rejected, or failing in front of others. You fear it not working out and other people saying “I told you so”.
So you avoid changing because, while the ship you’re on now leaks and is noisy and creaky, you can account for the bad parts by justifying “at least I know where I am.”
Now whether these physiological excuses are manufactured by the brain as reasons to NOT do something, so IT can save energy and avoid expending energy is unclear.
I personally would wager that yes, these excuses are entirely manufactured by the brain.
But the key to change is very very simple.
Take one, tiny, 1% step towards the goal.
Just a small one.
Consciously make the decision to behave differently for 15 minutes (about 1% of a day).
Or consciously make the decision to make one different decision. Just once.
Once per day.
That’s all it takes to change.
