Why Is Changing Your Life So Hard?

Want to change your life? 5 ways you may be getting in your own way.

Reviewed by Margaret Foley

Key points

• Stages of change include preparation, action, and maintenance.
• Lapses and relapses are to be expected and are part of the change process.
• Self-examination, emotional awareness, and preparing for curveballs can help you stay the course.

Can you relate?

• You declare on Sunday, “This is the week I’m finally going to go to yoga!” but bail to work late instead.
• You buy that meditation app and use it just once because you “couldn't find the time.”
• You feel determined (in a moment of motivation) to go to the gym but then get comfortable watching a new show on Netflix.
• You want a new job but don’t want to work to find one.
• You go all-in on a new hobby/behavior/gadget, then quickly burn out.

If any of these statements resonate, it means you’re just like everyone else who feels bewildered, frustrated, enraged, worried, frantic, ashamed, or isolated when thinking about a time they tried to change an ingrained pattern of behavior. It’s easy to see where we are and where we want to get; it’s the space in between that trips us up—space that’s filled with:

• Doing
• Maintaining
• Succeeding
• Comparing (to other times or other people)
• Perfecting
• Starting
• Tolerating the feelings that come with change
• Self-talk/self-sabotage

Trust me, I’ve been there. So why is change so hard?

What Does It Take to Change?

Unfortunately, simply wanting to change isn’t enough. Knowing how to change isn’t enough, either. There are many reasons why change is hard. For starters, it takes a lot of energy for the brain to do something differently; it’s therefore not going to do it without having a lot of structure around it.

When we think about change, we typically think only of the new action or behavior without realizing that an entire process occurs in the brain before someone acts. Any change has a better chance of lasting when we move through that process. The stages of this process are laid out in the transtheoretical model of change, developed by psychologists Prochaska and DiClemente in 1983. They are:

1. Precontemplation. You don’t think there’s a problem, so no change is even being considered.
2. Contemplation. You’re aware of a problem but ambivalent about changing. You’re merely contemplating a change.
3. Preparation. You’ve made the decision to change and are getting your ducks in a row. You’re thinking about what you need to do to ensure the change is successful.
4. Action. You’re executing the change.
5. Maintenance. You’re sustaining the change, focusing on the skills you need to keep practicing, lifestyle changes you need to maintain, and the red and yellow flags that indicate that you’re slipping.

Consider the last time you tried to make a change. Did you jump right into action? Could a lapse have been the result of a lack of preparation? Lapses and relapses are to be expected, and you can re-enter the process at any stage; you don’t have to return to the beginning.

5 Ways People (Myself Included) Get in Their Own Way

It’s important to keep in mind that there are objective stages, and then there are all the ways we get in our own way. More times than not, these are the unintentional ways we sabotage ourselves.

1. Underestimating what it takes to change. I see this a lot. Think of trying to change as learning a new skill. It takes a lot of practice to work out the kinks in order to improve. In my experience, most people do just enough to feel uncomfortable and make the change, but they likely don’t push themselves beyond what’s necessary. This often shows up when someone wants to change the way they communicate. Since communication issues happen between people, it greatly helps to receive feedback. Yet I find that clients are often leery of communicating their true feelings to someone else for fear that they’re being a burden. Not wanting to inconvenience anyone, they minimize their needs by saying something along the lines of “I don’t need to talk about it, it’s not that deep.”
2. Not knowing when to rest. I see this a lot around the New Year, when someone massively messes up and has a significant consequence (putting their back against the wall) or has a shiny new thing. They are all in at a pace that cannot be sustained.
3. Emotional hijacking. This is when our emotions hijack our behaviors, also referred to as emotional reasoning. When talking about “discipline” or changing a behavior, we want to separate what we feel from what we need to do. In other words, you can be anxious AND go to the gym. You can be self-conscious AND still go to the event by yourself. You can feel unsettled AND not seek reassurance from your friend. You can feel uncomfortable AND not need to immediately figure out why.
4. Getting swept up in their story. This one is often paired with emotional hijacking. There’s the event, and then there’s our story about the event. Let’s say you decide to try online dating again (that would be the change). You make your profile, put it up, have a strategy about how you’re going to approach the apps differently this time around, and give it a go. After three months, you decide to delete your profile but tell yourself (and your friends and family) that “you’ll never find anyone, there’s no one decent out there, and you’re going to die alone.” The last part is the assumption you’re making based on your experience with online dating. They’re fears, not facts, since you cannot predict the future. But because our assumptions are paired with adrenaline, they feel real and urgent (thus the hijack), but that’s the trap.
5. Not winterizing your mindset. It’s quite common for things to be moving along really well when, out of the blue, life throws you something to shake things up. Suddenly, you don’t feel like you’re on steady ground, and it gets harder to maintain your progress. Instead of doubling down on the things you know have been working, you slide into old patterns. Living in Cleveland, I get used to cold winters and prepare with layers and gear (gloves, boots, hat). A winterized mindset allows us to best manage life’s inevitable curveballs.