Have you reached that point in your life when you KNOW it’s time for a change? You are literally sick of having the same results in your life, whether that is excess weight, work stress, not loving your job, overwhelm, depressed… Whatever you feel your issue is, we reach a point when we feel so desperate to change – we have had enough!
Often this comes as a result of some sort of crisis, that might be an illness (ours or someone else’s), losing our job, being completely energy-less or simply not fitting into our favourite pair of jeans. There is usually a trigger – we feel we have reached the end, we cannot tolerate things anymore and we decide it’s time for a change.
We start off full of enthusiasm, start our new regime and quickly, usually after just a few days or a couple of weeks, we let it all go and we are back to our same old behaviours. No wonder we get frustrated!
I cannot tell you how many people ask me why we do this, and as usual, it really is a matter of understanding how our brains work.
When we learn something new, we forge new synaptic connections, but in order for those new connections to remain, we have to repeat and revisit the ‘new’ learning many times, otherwise the connections get pulled apart.
You may have heard the term, “What gets fired together, wires together”. That is exactly what that means, however, what most of us don’t realise is that our old firing/wiring is very powerful and our brain doesn’t want to let go of it easily. You see, our brains love the familiar and dislike the unfamiliar, so it will be reluctant to let the familiar wiring go. To overcome this, we have to repeat the new wiring many, many times for it to become permanent . Basically, your brain eventually lets the old wiring go and accepts the new wiring and a new habit/behaviour is made.
Of course I am simplifying it, but the point I’m making is that repetition is so important when learning something new.
However, the other thing that we almost always miss is that if we want something to change, we have to do something differently, do something new.
Now, lots of us think we make changes, but we are not really making changes at all. Think of it this way: if you expect it, then how can it be something new? It has to be unfamiliar for it to be different – if it is unfamiliar then it feels uncomfortable and unpredictable. So, if you are doing something new, that is the feeling you are looking for, otherwise the chances are it’s familiar, not new.
Just to make it even harder for us to change, our brain is hardwired to love the familiar, so we start with all the chatter in our heads that says things like ‘start tomorrow’, ‘you’ll never lose weight and keep it off’, ‘you are not good enough to start a business’ etc etc..
Our brain has only one purpose – to keep us safe – unfamiliar is not safe as it is not predictable, so when we start to change, it does its best to stop us!
Wow, by now you would be forgiven for thinking it’s an uphill battle, but it is really just conscious practice, it’s being aware of the thoughts going on in your head and knowing that it is just our brain trying to keep us from changing.
(And, I haven’t even mentioned that so many of us don’t even know we have this belief that is keeping us stuck, we are unaware of it, but that’s another email!)
Two easy things for you to do:
1. Don’t allow yourself to get stuck in the familiar. Change things up, get your brain comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Have a different morning routine, don’t park in the same place, don’t eat at the same restaurants, learn new skills, take up drawing, painting, join a book club, do Pilates, cycle, swim, go on different walks, visit new places, meet new people and so on – make those new synaptic connections, it really is the only way to change our brains!
2. When you are learning a new skill, you must remember that repetition, repetition, repetition is the key (think learning to ride a bike, drive a car). Lots of studies have been done on this and it is generally accepted that it takes 21 days of consistency to change a habit 🙂