Why we always move back to our default state and why we need to understand that to make change possible

Why is change so damn hard? We talk about it. We read about it. We delve into it! But when it comes to actual deep real change, we back down, we make ourselves small, we give up. It tortures me to look at how much unchanged change there is, as we give up on it and default back to what seems the easy solution and the way “we simply are”. But what if that default state is the key to make change possible? To understand why it holds us back? To allow us a new way to make change possible?

Why many of my change projects failed

I want to do more sports! I want to be more athletic! I want to be more focused, I want to be more precise! I want to finish that book and I want to travel the world! These are big goals with big changes necessary, for sure, but these are some examples of goals I had in my mind. I would set a goal, set what I would have to do and started working on making them a reality.

But then, with a perfect timetable in place, I would soon give up on them. Not, because I did not wanted them, but because I failed to upheal the grand plan I made, and because I told myself “oh no, maybe that is not the grand plan I have, maybe that was a pure illusion”, and I gave up.

My mind would spin around and make a lot of weird predictions of why it would fail. And my body wanted to go back to the calmness of what it knew to be the safe and warm place.

But was it the same and warm place? Was it really that place I wanted to go back to? Warm and fuzzy, comfortable and easy.

When I looked more closely I found a weird sense of comfort in the dark

When I looked at one of my more recent projects, I wanted to make new friends. I would go out and meet people, talk to people, and make new friends. But soon after, I would stop. I would tell myself: “You can do that later. You have other things to do right now. And besides, who would want to be befriended with you? You are a bit awkward, you know that, right?”

Isn’t that a peculiar thought? I stopped making a deliberate effort to make new friends. And defaulted back to dream about making friends. But then I asked myself, am I really better off, when this is the result of no change? I felt better. I felt more safe and secure. It gave me comfort to dream instead of do. It felt good. And I could imagine having friends.

But I realized that this state of retracing is highly unfullfilling. It is not a good state to be in. It does not serve the short-, middle- ad long-term. It is contra-productive and causes more harm than any benefit there may be.

But why the hell would I want to fall back to that option? Why was it that option that gave me so much pleasure and enjoyment in the moment?

And then I realized. It is my default system. It is how it always ways. It is what is ingrained within me. It is what my brain knows. It feels comfort in there. It feels relaxation in there. As negative and bad and unpleasant in may be, it still knows it best. And because it knows it best, it always looks for ways to go back. It always tries to go back to that default state.

The Highway, the Trail & why we go back to those that treat us worse

Do you know this image of the highway versus the trail in change management? It resemples this image. The brain always goes a specific way, and so in does so here as well. Always goes the same way, the way that at one point becomes a highway, as we use it over and over again. But the trail? That is new. We don’t know it yet. So it takes constant effort to walk along a new trail. And imagine how painful it is if you see your friends, family, colleagues move along the highway you used to take as well and now you find yourself on the trail — clumpsy, unhappy, pissed, annoyed. And your brain will tell you: “Ah, come on, just go back to the highway, we know that already, that is comfortable, that is sweet. Just hop on, we even carry you a bit with your tired feet and anxious face.”

What will you do? Stay on your trail or move back to the highway? The incentives are often just too tempting. And you hop back on.

But is the highway a place of beauty? No one can tell

The crux is that often the highway is not what you need. The highway is what pains you and diverges you from yourself. It is a way that is not for you. But easy to go along.

We hear from people that raise in poverty and talk about them having it especially difficult to become rich. We talk about victims of sexual abuse and being locked down in rooms of kidnappers and the confusion of when they love them, when they want to go back to them, when they felt joy in that state. When they fail to let go of the atrocities of what has happened to them. But do you know why? That is what they know. That is their reality. Their highway. The path they were on for such a long time. The structure that was ingrained in their brain. It is what they know. What the brain knows. It wants to go back to it. Back to that state of comfort, even if it is as painful as it possibly can be. It is the slow and steady raising and deepening of what is you and how you are treated and how you think of yourself. Subtle. Often not visible to the normal eye. But deep within, the pattern emerges and finds itself a way to infiltrate everything within.

That makes change so immensily hard

True change? That is immensily hard. That is why we sometimes talk about the inner child. Why we talk about the importance of our early years, our teeny years, the years that form who we are. It has a special effect. It is especially well able to form highways and kill trailpaths.

Our brain wants to go back to normal, to what it knows. So when we want to change, we need to be aware. Of that framework, of that what lies within. It comes out, it shows its face whenever we want to change the deep within.

You want to change your fears? Your anxiety? Your way of making friends? Your way of holding your hand? The way you focus your attention? The way you hold your breath in swimming? It will be tough. Because you know that you had a swimming accident when you were 5 years old and you know that you had troubles holding your attention for long before, you did not have a good friend since many years and you shy away from social conversation. Then your brain will freak out. This is a change. A big one. A crazy one. And whenever you make a tiny bit of a step in the right direction, it will use it’s all effort to hold you back: “No, don’t do that, this highly dangerous!”, “No, damn it, stop it, you will do harm to you, I have something else we can do”. You will feel strong emotions, feelings of uneasiness, you will see the people being faster than you, running on the highway, and your brain will use any kind of tiny attention gap and moves back to what it likes — the old way. “Damn, again?” will you ask not only once. “Damn, again I fell into that trap.” It will sit on the chimney looking out for you with ghosty images and halloweeny grimaces, it will crawl below your bedcover and sqeeze your body and it will run errands in circles to keep you from moving forward.

But it can also elevate you, free you from its within

By becoming aware of it, it helps you to let go. To do despite what is going on. To change, despite the fear, and anxiousness, despite the anger and pain. Despite everything that holds you back, that pushes you back. Your mind, the highway with all your friends that love you to stay as you are as they know and love you for who you are.

In change you give up a lot. It seems. It is not easy. It is damn hard. But knowing that? Knowing that this is what happens brings revelation and calm. When you know that you are hold back, you can do something against it. You can find mechanisms to deal with it easier. And you know, you won’t have to endure it for a lifetime of change. At some point the trail becomes bigger and the highway smaller and you see the light on the end of the tunnel. And you may be surprised that some friends will come with you, or value you for your different paths. And you will fidn new ones.

What can you do to make that change a bit easier?

Well, as said, change is hard. But some things that helped me in the past, are the following:

• Accept that it takes time. The deeper it is within, the more you have it done all the way the same way, the longer it takes to change the path. Acceptance goes a long way.

• If you realize that you hve emotions, thoughts running around yourself: ask yourself/feel within whether these are for the situation at hand or have their root in your brain holding you back from the change. Often the emotions we feel in a situation are not related to the situation at hand but a deep seated emotion stored within and retraced back when triggered.

• Find mechanisms to allow the brain to do what it loves, but cap its time. step by step. If it loves to watch movies all day long and fall into daydreaming, give it time to daydream. But instead of 2 hours, let it be an hour. And then 45 minutes and so on.

• If it loves to run away in social situations (but you don’t want to), then run away from time to time, but consciously, and with time you realize that this is trained, ingrained highway behavior. Then you can focus on the feeling in the now and decide — do I like to run away now or do I want to stay. There is nothing wrong with running away, you can do whatever you want, but when it botheres you, then you can use that mechanism.

• Don’t talk badly about yourself, make yourself small for change to not happen quickly. It comes as it comes. The best thing you can do is to become more and more aware of yourself and what you do, the automatic mechanisms that run , the automatic emotions and the automatic images in your head. When you become aware, you can begin to change. And that can take years and may never be finished, thus enjoy the process of change, of finding funny beahvior and weird moves within yourself and accept it for being you on a highway that you in your older years decided to leave for an newer path, but the younger you still prefers the highway and doesn’t want to let go. It is like the saying: “we all have our own burdens to bear” which is a bit nicer in German actually, as it says (translated): “We all have our own little packages to carry”: We have them, they are ingrained, but as we have them, let’s decide to enjoy them but not always follow them”. You will go lighter through change and life in general when you do.

• Find an environment that treats you well and supports you in your endeavors. If you have people around you that tend to want to have you as you are and take you aback into your own highways, then look for ways to find some new elements in your environment that inspire you to keep going. Be it a new friend, a different city, a new apartment, a slightly different career, then go and do that. You do not need to start over, start anew, but here and there a change can help you manifest the new you. And help you go along the slow and bumpy trail until it forms and becomes a tarred road.

• Let it go. You can change, and change, and change. But sometimes, just let it flow. And be good to yourself. Treat you well. And then you change, and change, and change again. This gives you the strengths to go on.

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I would be excited to hear what works best for you to change? And how your default intrudes that process? You can also sign up to my articles if you want to read more.