“The reason people find it difficult to change is because most people don’t change much. We are creatures of habit. We live routine, patterned lives. Moments differ. Different things come up but our days are governed by sameness. We stopped growing and learning long ago. By about the age of 7 we were set in our ways. It’s why Aristotle said, ‘Show me the 7-year-old and I’ll show you the adult.’
That’s both good and not so good news. Good news means we learned and learned well. We need not repeat learning those things. If we did, we’d not advance much. Plus, we are consistent. We have routines and everything isn’t all haphazard. The downside is we are patterned and react the same way to stimuli. We don’t attempt to learn or grow much more. We repeat habits that don’t serve us.
We run on automatic. What happens outside of our awareness controls us. Without positive change and evolution, we tend to atrophy and become stressed. That is if we don’t also have positive habits like optimism and gratitude to help us stay healthy and young. If we don’t cultivate some healthy nutrition and physical activity habits our bodies atrophy too. We live in a comfort zone of our making.
Learn To Live And Celebrate Life On Your Terms: Create The Life You Want
We aren’t handling difficult jungle survival challenges. We go to work or school, doing the same things, our routines, coming home, dining, relaxing the same way each evening then repeating it all over again the next day. We’re known by our habits and our routines. People can find us and count on us OR NOT, because we do the same stuff over and over. Some people are chronically late or break promises.
Researchers estimate that we think an excess of 60,000 thoughts a day and most of those are the same thoughts we thought the day before and the day before that and on and on. This suggests that we aren’t stimulating our brains to think new thoughts and do new things much. We aren’t giving it unique problems to solve. We are patterned and routine by design so life is easier. It saves energy.
Just as the creases in a folded piece of paper make it easier to refold it in the same way, our patterns are habits that serve us. These are well worn neural pathways we repeat because it is the path of least resistance. Whatever the reason for their development we’ll engage in reliable healthy behaviors or reliably unhealthy negative behaviors. We do whatever we learned to do.
Learn To Live And Celebrate Life On Your Terms: Create The Life You Want
The brain works this way, so we don’t have to relearn things repeatedly. We don’t need to learn how to open a door each time we encounter one. Since most of us aren’t encouraged to learn to develop new habits as we grow up, we get comfortable, set in and familiar with our routines. We live them. That’s good AND it’s a rut. We don’t venture out. we don’t do new things. Our options are limited.
We make fewer choices. We get so comfortable we may even fear doing things we wouldn’t have at one time. We might want to change but because of living in the comfort zone for so long we aren’t sure how. We may crave change but fear it or we may fear change but crave it. We’ve been one way for so long the idea of doing things differently is hard. ‘But I’ve always done it this way.’
It is and it isn’t that hard. We must get used to doing more new things and develop the habit for adding in those activities that are good for us and challenge us to grow and stimulate us. If we always do what we always did, we always get what we always got. Makes sense, right? Wanting to change but fearing it and remaining the same isn’t healthy. Not changing and adapting isn’t either. Get this.
Learn To Live And Celebrate Life On Your Terms: Create The Life You Want
It’s why I return to this topic again and again. Most people aren’t even aware they are living the same days over and over again because what is so close to us, we don’t notice. You can’t see your face without something to reflect it. You can’t see your hand in front of you in total darkness. Until light is shown on our repetitive thoughts, feelings, words and behaviors that don’t serve us, they remain set.
Doing new things might be tough at first because it requires us to think, speak and act in different ways. We can’t sit back and coast as we have been doing. Adding in novelty is incredibly beneficial. It’s good for us. Do it then change becomes easier because we start engaging in new, different healthy behaviors and shake things up a bit gently. Drop by drop the tub fills. Make a commitment to do a little.
If we make doing new things a reliable, useful, positive habit we’ll begin to overcome the fear of changing, discover it is enjoyable learning and doing new things and notice it gets easier as we go along. It is only difficult because we rusted. Apply a little mental, emotional and behavior oil and things loosen up. You’ll discover the numerous benefits by doing more than me telling you what they are.
Learn To Live And Celebrate Life On Your Terms: Create The Life You Want
Start with having more delight and fun. Simple fun activities alone or with others that lift you up and cause you to enjoy things more. Be gentle. Think of it as adventure and exploration. Leaving the habitual realms of your thinking and acting will open new possibilities and opportunities to you. It’s like thinking outside the box. You’ll think, feel, see, and enjoy more things than you might be able to imagine at this moment. I’ll come back to this again, but for now, consider adding in novelty and read my other blogs on it. Read my book, ‘Life On Your Terms: Create The Life You Want. AND begin by celebrating everything!” Rex Sikes
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