Why Change Is Hard (And 3 Ways to Make it Easy)

Surprising news — people are not resistant or lazy

Leading change is hard right?

You want your team or spouse to do something different.

But it is so difficult. People resist change.

Heck — you even resist it when you are trying to change yourself!

You want to:

• save less and invest more
• get up early to write
• exercise more

But find yourself failing. Again and again.

• Why is it so hard to get others to change?
• Why is it so hard to change yourself?

I’ve found the answer.

And it will surprise you.

Why change is so hard

67 people took part in a study spending time in a room smelling of freshly baked cookies. Some got to taste the delicious-looking treats. But others only got to eat radishes. Evil I know!

Here’s the twist. Researchers left the room. This left the radish eaters with the task of resisting the tempting cookies. All did. Although they showed a lot of interest — even picking the cookies up to smell.

Participants were then given puzzles to solve. But the puzzles were unsolvable. Researchers wanted to know how long they spent trying to solve the puzzles.

The results were startling.

• the cookie eaters spent 19 minutes working hard to solve the puzzles
• the poor radish eaters only lasted 8 minutes before giving up

Why did the radish eaters give up so easily? Resisting the temptation of the cookies had used up their energy

Here’s the crucial insight:

Our willpower and energy is a limited resource.

We use it up resisting temptation and managing our emotions. Any activity that requires conscious effort drains this energy. Such as:

• learning a new task at work.
• coping with fears
• managing the impression we make at a meeting
• controlling our spending
• dealing with a difficult person

Now here’s why this matters.

When trying to change yourself or someone else, you are using the same energy. Easy behaviour gets replaced by something requiring conscious effort.

Notice how these changes take more effort. Instead of:

• slumping in front of the TV at night eating crisps — resist and choose an apple.
• inputting data into a familiar spreadsheet — learn how to use new software.
• working with familiar colleagues — join an unknown team with a different culture

Change is not hard because people are resistant. Change is hard because it wears people out.

What looks like laziness is exhaustion

This should help you understand why your approach to change isn’t working.

Stop doing this — it doesn’t work

When people are struggling to change we jump into logic mode. We give reasons for the required behaviour. Consider the impact of the following situations:

• You berate yourself for missing your gym session and think of your need to lose weight
• Senior managers give a presentation full of stats and bullet points. Explaining why this change is important
• A doctor faces a patient with health problems. She reminds them they need to cut smoking and improve their diet
• You tell your teenage child they won’t get a good job if they don’t revise

None of this is likely to work.

Change is hard because it drains us. But rational reasons don’t provide the fuel to re-energise you. They do the opposite. They reduce energy even more.

You need a different approach

How to make change easy

We can make change easy. If we take advantage of this insight. Change uses up energy and that energy is a limited resource.

There are three ways you can do this:

• design a change that demands less energy
• time the change to fit when you have the most energy
• add in fresh fuel to increase energy levels

Here’s how you can make these approaches work.

1. Design a change that demands less energy

Once you realise how demanding change is it becomes obvious that you should make the change easier to do. I would encourage you to go further and make it so easy it can’t fail.

• Don’t plan 3 intense gym sessions. Do 10 minutes of strength exercises whilst watching your favourite Netflix.
• Don’t correct your partner’s 7 faults. Talk to them about only one (and pick the easiest)
• Ask your boss to make one specific tweak to her behaviour

A good test of whether the change is small enough is that you start thinking:

‘this is too easy’

‘I should do more’

Stick to your easy plan and you will reap the rewards.

Imagine if you made a successful small change every month for the next 3 years. Your life would be so different. And yet it would feel like hardly any effort at all.

Don’t rush to add changes. Be patient and wait until it is an automatic habit before introducing more. Otherwise, you will overwhelm yourself or others.

Another idea to make the change smaller is to remove rather than add things to your life. You can read more about this unique approach here.

2. Make it earlier

Research shows that willpower reduces as the day progresses. It then resets each morning. This is amazing. Every morning you wake up with a bucket full of willpower again.

It also explains why we stay up late watching and eating junk. We have no willpower left!

Do your change activity as early as possible in the day.

• Do you need to talk to your boss asking him to do something different? Find a way to do it early in the day.
• Want to spend 30 minutes a day reading? Find a way to do it in the morning before work.

Bonus tip: do the difficult stuff from your task list first

If you can’t make the change easier or earlier then you’ll need to take the 3rd approach.

3. Add some extra fuel

Your energy depletes as the day progresses but it is possible to add energy through these 3 ideas:

Focus on progress. I have written about this before but we seem to be hard-wired to focus on the gap between where we are and where we want to be. This is discouraging and drains us of energy. Find a way to celebrate progress. This will increase confidence and propel you forward.

Find good influences. There is an astonishing amount of research that shows we adopt the behaviours of those around us. Our performance gets better in the office if we sit next to high performers. Your chances of being obese increase by 57% if a close friend is obese. This change happens without any effort. So if you want to change yourself or others spend time with those who already do it. And keep away from those who are doing behaviours you want to stop.

Fan good feelings. There is a dramatic difference between giving a reason and appealing to positive feelings. Compare these examples:

• Tell someone they need to change their diet to reduce their health dangers. Or asking them about their desire to have the energy to play with their grandchildren
• Tell yourself it is important to save for the future or dream about what would do with the money
• Explain to your boss you need more notice of projects. Or ask them what would happen if you increased project quality by 25%

The first appeals to reasons which drains. The second inspires good feelings with a positive vision of the future. This adds fuel and energises. And this makes change easier.

Why not try this on yourself or someone else this week?

Cut the logic. Make it smaller, make it earlier and remember to add plenty of fuel.

Change is easy when you know how.

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