What Change Is Difficult for Most People

There is no getting around the fact that change is hard. Really, really hard. We see reminders of how hard change is every day. But this difficulty does not stop our attempts, despite the inevitable—and somewhat insurmountable—challenge of changing. 

Why people respond negatively to change? The answer is rooted in evolutionary science. Our brains have evolved to help us survive, which is why certainty is so important to us. Humans have evolved to predict and assess risks and benefits to any decision; this has often meant choosing the same path we have previously walked—because we know where it leads.

Beyond the evolutionary response, there are also biological and behavioral processes that occur when our brains experience change. There seem to be at least two ways that our bodies respond to larger shifts in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

Challenge vs Threat

Scientifically, our response to change can be understood via two fundamental reactions: distress and eustress. Distress arises in the body when we are threatened by change. When we react to change as a threat, our bodies physically react as do our brains: our hearts literally beat faster and our vascular resistance (i.e., our body’s ability to pump blood) weakens. These biological processes heighten the emotional or mental resistance we already feel toward change. In other words, these physiological responses severely limit our ability to respond. In this emotional state, we are more likely to have thoughts like, “I can’t do this,” along with increased feelings of dread or anxiety. 

However, when we experience eustress in response to change, we start to play a different game. With this reaction, we physiologically view change as a “challenge,” which allows our bodies to respond much more effectively. Although our hearts still beat faster, our vascular resistance goes down instead of up, which means that blood flows through our circulatory systems with increased ease. These physiological reactions lead to positive feelings (or, at the very least, less bad ones). 

What Can I Do About Change?

Now that we have broken down our physiological responses to change, we will look further into what we can do to influence better outcomes. Though it can be challenging to work against your biological responses, it is important to remember you can make those responses work for you—by shifting your thoughts. This is where developing a growth mindset becomes important.

Developing a Growth Mindset

Growth mindset is a term first coined by the American Psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Dr. Dweck’s book explores how an individual’s performance is intimately linked to underlying beliefs about their own intelligence and ability to learn. 

Here are a few strategies you can employ to help your own growth mindset flourish:

1. Look to your peers: One of the best places to start is to find a growth mindset role model (i.e., someone who already embodies the aspects of growth mindset you want to encourage for yourself). By emulating the behavior of those you admire, you will be better

2. Celebrate the “baby steps”: While it can be tempting to focus on your future self as a finished product, it is actually best for your development to acknowledge your progress along the way. By celebrating your smaller successes as well as your monumental ones, you can shift your expectations for yourself and others around change.

3. Reframe your thinking: Whenever possible, remind yourself that any given challenge does not have to be a threat—it can be an opportunity. As we have seen, this can be especially difficult given your biological responses, but this is, in part, what makes this so important.

4. Experiment: If you can, give yourself permission to try new things. If you are able to utilize a variety of tools and strategies, it can change how your brain responds to the next new task. In other words: the more times you try something new, the less you will need to be afraid of trying new things.