This month, and for the next couple, I will be exploring not only what keeps us from changing but what questions we need to ask ourselves if we are serious about adopting new ways.

Quick and gone

Speed is seemingly a characteristic of many habits; by definition, habits produce action that happens quickly and without conscious thought. Many of our habits are sparked off by, and happen in, social situations that are fast-moving such as not joining in with a conversation, missing opportunities to give praise or reacting defensively to feedback. All of these happen in quick-time. OK, but what about something like smoking? That doesn’t.

Smoking is an interesting habit because it does indeed, happen relatively slowly, and you would think that we would get plenty of warning when we were about to do the damaging behaviour. As it happens (you may know this already) the urge to smoke can be based on one or a mixture of two elements: chemical addiction and ritual addiction. The chemical element speaks for itself; the ritual element is the one which fulfils the need for a structured activity that brings some pleasure or relief. Pipe smokers and cigarette smokers who roll their own are a great illustration of this. They choose to go through a long ritual to get to the bit where they actually get to smoke. This suggests that they probably derive as much ‘benefit’ from the routine as they do from the intake of nicotine. Does this mean that we can get addicted to routine itself? More likely that what we are becoming hooked on is the feelings of calm and safety that a routine can provide us with. Performing routine behaviours gives us time to contemplate, to rest our minds, to celebrate our abilities like rolling the perfect cigarette, splitting the log perfectly down the middle, mixing the perfect drink or laying the perfect log fire.

So, on one hand, the speed at which some habits happen make them tricky to change because we have to be super-alert to stop ourselves in time and yet other habits, that occur at a snail’s pace, are hard to change because of the feelings of comfort and wellbeing that they afford us.

Sell it to me!

Leaving tobacco and log fires behind, there are of course other powerful characteristics of our psyche that make it difficult for us to change the way we behave. One of the most potent would seem to be our ability to justify, to sell a concept to ourselves as a way of releasing us from the need to do the difficult thing – changing. Rather than stand up to our compulsion we devise elaborate explanations to justify our U-turn. We literally sell the old, undesirable habit back to ourselves because we don’t want to admit that we have decided to go against our previous good decision (“shouting at people is OK because at least it gets things done around here!)”. That sounds harsh doesn’t it? It is but it’s not the whole story. If you want the truth, step this way down the dark corridor of your personal feelings and hidden desires.

The truth is that we are driven by fear and pleasure. That’s it. Fear and pleasure, fear and pleasure; day in day out. When we are trying to break a habit we are fighting against the primitive drives of escape and attraction. The rest is window dressing.

Some examples: If I find it hard to delegate it’s probably because I fear being let down and looking stupid. People who find it hard to stop arguing are often worried about what might happen to them if they appeared weak, left out or not in charge. To cite a particularly common example: those of us who find it hard to prioritise don’t lack organisation ability, we probably get hijacked by our fears and desires:

• Fear of not being able to do the difficult task (so we ignore it)
• Fear of losing control on the appearance of too many tasks
• The pleasure that comes from doing ‘this’ but not ‘that’
• Fear of running out of time and getting into trouble (so we do a bit of everything, in the wrong order, badly)

So, it seems at first glance that we have to tell stories to ourselves to cover up the fact that we haven’t stuck to a promise to change. In reality we are probably being hassled by our fears around negative outcomes but then rather than facing those fears and talking them through (even with ourselves) we make excuses for why we back-tracked and all is well again. Except that we haven’t changed.

Too much, too long, too radical

And as if things aren’t already difficult enough we often make our own attempts at changing even more difficult by setting unattainable objectives in the first place. For example, I might decide that I’m going to get into really great shape this year. So I go out and buy a load of fruit and vegetables, a juicer, a gym membership and a tracksuit. And then, knowing me, I go to it really hard for a week, maybe two. I run every day until I feel sick, I have fruit for breakfast until I’m fainting for lack of carbohydrates; I cut out biscuits and chocolate completely, which makes me miserable, and then drink enough water to render my blood dangerously thin. Not surprisingly the excuses then begin: “I shan’t run today because my shoes are still drying out from yesterday. Oh and I’ve eaten all the bananas so I can’t do my 2 litre smoothie. I’ll have Coco Pops today as a special one-off treat to give me a bit of a boost and because I have been so good!”.

New habits don't come easy

There are two problems here. Most of us can’t voluntarily handle drastic change, be it in our personal or in our professional lives; physical, emotional or intellectual; the fact is that we really don’t need to because the stakes aren’t high enough – the consequences of giving up simply aren’t dire enough.

Secondly, when we set huge goals we may even only be doing so to impress ourselves. We perhaps try to give ourselves something really exciting to go for with the added safety net of having made the goal so unattainable that we can put our failure down to unforeseen circumstances.

So what do I have to do to change?

Setting out to change something about my behaviour is primarily about making change happen in my feelings and thinking. Because I can’t fool my feelings or my mind in the same way that they can fool me, I must ask probing questions of myself to get anything like a true picture of my start and end point. I have to think carefully about what exactly I am thinking of changing and for what reason. Most importantly of all, I can get valuable clues about the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ by scrutinising my real end game:

1. What do I really want out of this?
2. Who am I doing this for?
3. Why does this need to happen now?
4. What has altered in me that makes lasting change at all likely?

Being successful at change is largely about choosing the right change for the right reason. Willpower may play a part but should not form the mainstay of your personal change strategy. And finally, whatever state you are aiming to achieve, it must be easier than where you are now, not just better.