Why Initiating Change Is So Difficult

A good place to start to change your life is thinking about why you don’t.

This is a tough little conundrum that is approached by the 386 different “talking therapies”, in surprisingly, 386 different ways. Part of the problem with therapy, counseling, (and counselling if you are reading in UK and Australia) and life coaching is there is so much of it about. Each different approach has different beliefs about why we change, how we muster motivation and how what we have to do to make it all happen. The one thing they all have in common is that the end result is (hopefully), change.

A majority of approaches include some attempt to answer the question of "why we don’t change". On paper it should be easy. We identify something in our lives that we don’t like, or is making us unhappy, and we change it…simple! In reality, it couldn’t be further from the truth. We often fall into odd patterns…we take 2 steps forward and 2 or even 3 back, or sometimes just seem frozen and unable to move. This initial inability to move forwards often prevents us from changing even before it’s begun. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot even before the race has begun. So, what to do?

How To Start Changing

A good place to start is by examining the pattern of what happens when you try to move forward. The pioneering work of Dr Antony Ryle, at Guys Hospital in London outlines an ingenious but wonderfully simple way of doing this (his work later became known as Cognitive Analytical Therapy). He set about defining all the patterns of “stuckness” that we get caught in that prevent us from moving forward. Amazingly he realized they fall into only 3 broad groups which he called “snags”, “traps” and “dilemmas”.

Quite simply, he realized that if we are caught in one of these patterns (which we often are) it is unlikely we will change. All that tends to happen is that we trundle around the same old pattern, thinking and reacting in the same old ways. The more we tread the weary path the deeper the ruts become and the harder it is to escape. Sound familiar?

There are of course numerous ways out, but unless we can identify the pattern that we are caught in and blindly stumble around, we will forever be trapped in an endless holding pattern. It sounds suffocating…which sometimes is how it feels.

Whatever pattern you are currently caught in (we all tend to be effect by one or two) the important thing to remember is there are ways out…even if it feels completely inescapable, (which is actually a by-product of what Dr Antony Ryle would call a “Trap”).

If you would like further information about the patterns of behaviour that keep us stuck, or further information about our Life Change Holiday and Life Coaching Hoilday, just send us a message through our contact page.

Bye for now.

Alex.