There's something about the way we try to make changes that really isn't working for us. Let's find a new approach for 2020.

New Year, New You

This week is a special week in the world. This is the week that many social researchers tell us that the first massive group of humans who made new years' resolutions and big life-change plans for the new year give up. That's right, this is the quit-iversary of life change for a lot of us. Polls and user data from tracking apps points to another large group of us will abandon our efforts by mid February.

So often, the new year doesn't come with a new you. It's not because January isn't magical enough...it's because what is usually at the heart of every resolution or new year's goal is CHANGE.

And change is hard.

In fact, for the most part, intentional change doesn't ever happen the way we think or want. Those of us who cross the finish line to make a new habit or keep a powerful promise to ourselves to do something differently, always get there after many detours, difficulties, and drama. It's certainly not a walk in the park.

But why is it that we so often fail to change? Especially changes that we know will feel good, be healthy for us, or help us achieve something we want. Why are even those so hard to follow through on?

Today at Wild + Brave, we're looking at 3 of the most frequent flaws in our approach to change. For humans of every personality type, social group, and level of awesomeness - these are the big three. We'll unpack them together in today's blog, but if you want the spoiler version, here are the reasons:

1. We seek EXTERNAL Change (instead of internal)
2. We seek EPIC Change (instead of atomic change)
3. We seek to ESCAPE the Negative (instead of changing toward the good)

Reason #1: Seeking External Change 

Urgent, dramatic, jump-off-the-cliff kinds of change tends to correspond with EXTERNAL shifts in reality. Much like actually being thrown off a cliff, it can feel like the events of life are happening TO us whenever loss, love, disappointment, failure, sickness, grief, or opportunity unexpected crash land into our lives. 

Even things like achievement, success, and advancing on your goals are usually external to us. It isn’t that we changed. Our circumstance did.

But when we look only for external change, it’s a recipe for letting life happen to you (which can make us insecure). It'll push us to "keep trying harder" to achieve a result that it ultimately outside of our control.

Reason #2: Seeking Big Change

But waiting for this kind of apocalyptic change to appear in your life is like shopping for lightning bolts. When it comes, it can do more damage than the blast of activity you are forced into when it hits. It’s better to shop for a light bulb…something small that can steadily add to your life in a sustainable way. These little light bulbs of change are what I’ve recently come to think of as “atomic change.” It’s about making the change so small it’s like working on the atomic level. It’s not just little, it’s a change that focuses on the essence of something in my life. (FYI: I borrowed the idea from James Clear who talks about “atomic habits" in his book by the same name.)

Whether it’s a one-time change or a habit you want to create, if you dial it down to the atomic level, it becomes small enough to actually elbow it into your real life. Real atomic change is strategically meaningful or valuable enough (even if you only do it a handful of times) that it has a cascading impact on your life.

Small change. Big impact.

I think it’s the grandiosity of “big change” that keeps us on a hamster wheel of failure. We don’t really see things change in our lives because we’re not understanding how we change naturally.

Moving Toward Real Change = Internal, Snack-sized Change

The real changes that move the needle in life are the INTERNAL changes. Changes in how we experience our lives, our work, our relationships. It’s actually good news that the external state of our lives is less important than our internal experience of it.

We can’t control whether our loved ones are sent into a war zone, or if our pet becomes ill. We can do a lot to improve the chances of being received well at work, and to make good relationships welcome in our lives. But we can’t actually make it happen.

You can’t put “get promotion” or “meet the right person” on your to-do list. 

But what if you could start experiencing the freedom you’d anticipate having once you got that promotion right where you are. Or what if you could be more yourself when you meet new people, and thus be more able to connect with new people from a place of authenticity?

Those are internal changes. And most of what has to happen for your internal landscape to change are those atomic changes. It’s so small, we often are embarrassed to tell people it’s what we’re doing. It doesn’t seem impressive enough.

• Like 60 seconds of meditation before walking into the afternoon meeting.
• Or practicing 45 seconds of compassion to people who irritate or hurt you.
• Or going to bed just 15 minutes earlier.

Small shifts encounter less resistance. They take less energy and effort to execute, making their burden on you more manageable. It means the tiny change has a fighting chance at feeling like a good thing. Of not being too heavy to carry off. 

If the change is atomic, it will bring you tiny, sustainable successes that keep you in the game with it while it slowly transforms your life.

Reason #3: Changing to Leave Something Behind

Even if you’re not jazzed by the idea of snack-sized change, there’s something else to keep in mind when you want to make your life better. Aside from making our “new year’s resolutions” too BIG, or focusing them on what’s EXTERNAL and therefore outside of our control; the third most frequent mistake we’re all prone to is making change all about what we want LESS of. 

When we do this, “new year new you” is not really about a new you for the year...it’s about wanting to escape some “Old You” or an old life that you’ve come to dislike. 

As powerful as your aversion may be - as much guilt, or shame, or fear as you may feel attached to the “old you” - trying to leave it in the rear view mirror can be all but impossible. As much as you may want to leave 2019 in the dustbin, the same you is with you as you walk into 2020. 

Change TOWARD Your Passion

Research shows that when change really works, it’s because we’re moving toward something meaningful...really the right word might be DELIGHTFUL. 

Take that word, “Delightful” and look at its parts. When I look, I see the words “light” and “full” and that is a surprisingly apt recipe for powering change. If you fill yourself with the light of the change you want, it will power you in your action. 

As useful as our negative emotions are (shame, irritation, and sadness are actually 3 of my favorite emotions after all! (Learn More about the positive value of negative emotions here.), it’s the positive emotions that come with the kind of energy we need to help us actually change. 

Change From The Center of Who You Are

I read something a few months ago, where the words “love from the center of who you are” were a featured piece of advice. I was captivated. For all of us hungry for authenticity and grounded peace...a sense of being ourselves, of being whole, of being right where we belong, this idea of doing something “from the center of who you are” seems like the golden key. 

If you want sustainable, life-enriching change, the change needs to come from the center of who you are. It can’t do that if you’re changing out of avoidance, shame, or terror. You change from the center of who you are when you let yourself be filled with the light of the thing you want, the thing you love, and let that passionate glow draw you forward. Change toward something, not away from it.

Why We Don’t Glow

I think for most of us, there are changes we could glow about. We have the strength to want and reach for what really matters to us from the center of who we are. But it’s actually terrifying to let ourselves glow. To allow ourselves to admit (even in the recesses of our minds) that we really want whatever it is. 

When we do say we want it, we try to just let ourselves want it just a little. We have rationalize why it’s a good idea…but we don’t let ourselves fall in love with it. 

We can feel like we’re climbing out on a limb to really let ourselves open up to want and chase after glow-worthy dreams. Somewhere along the way, most of us have learned to try to protect ourselves from disappointment by being cautious with our glow.

Don’t love too hard...won't it hurt worse if you can’t have that which you love? 

Don’t swing too often...what if you use up your swings?

But to dampen our inner glow is like cutting of our physical hearts to prevent bleeding if we get cut. If we hold back the blood flow in the arm, I'll bleed less if I get hurt attempting this thing. But good blood flow makes it possible for you to do the thing well, avoiding cuts. And if you do cut yourself, the "lost blood" is HEALTHY, and serves you in recovering from injury.

It's the same with a swinging often. When you do it fully, and do it well, you become stronger with every swing, more capable of taking swings in the future - not depleted of the strength to try.

Your glow is the same. The passion you feel, and the love you let fill you for that thing you want makes you healthy, vibrant and strong. It restores your ability to recover from disappointment. Loving more, getting good at glowing from the inside, and passionately moving toward the things that light you up inside builds your confidence that you can recover, you can glow again, and you can change for the good even when things don’t go as you hoped.

The Recipe for Successful Change

1. Change INTERNAL Factors - not external ones.
2. Make SNACK-SIZED Change - not epic change.
3. Change Toward Your PASSION - not away from something bad.

If you really want to see things change in 2020, step away from external change goals, and shift to find the snack-sized internal changes. And change toward your glow. Let it fill you with life, and make you resilient. Let it build you from the inside out so you can live 2020 from the center of who you are.