Break It Down: Why We Resist Change

The world is changing around me very fast. I am sure you are experiencing it too. There are the developments around us that we have very little control over, and there are personal developments that result in changing conditions in our lives. In both cases, we need to adapt.

Since starting my final semester in the Master of Business Administration program at University of Nevada, Reno, I have been excited about what my next step would look like. I have had a feeling of uncertainty accompanied by a feeling that I would have time on my hand to pay attention to what matters most to me. 

Change feels complicated when you look at it all at once. Breaking the cycle of what feels good and we have grown used to is naturally uncomfortable. Like most complex behaviors, resistance to change becomes easier to understand when you break it down. 

One major reason people resist change is because we want to avoid loss. We feel the pain of losing something more than the satisfaction of gaining something. Even when a change promises improvement, the first reaction is often to focus on what might go away such as routines and control. For me, graduating from college means gaining back some of my time and increasing my efficiency or productivity, but I worry about losing the routine and the hard expectations. There was a time I was studying for insurance brokerage exams, that’s when I came across Loss Aversion.

Another important factor is identity. We build our identity around the skills, relationships, and knowledge we have spent years developing. When things change, it can feel like those hard-earned things are suddenly less valuable. For example, moving to a new place for any reason  means leaving the identity you have built for many years and starting a new cycle of building your connections. When change challenges identity, resistance becomes much more understandable.

Finally, change introduces uncertainty, and we tend to avoid uncertain outcomes. Even when the current situation is imperfect, we often prefer it because it is predictable. This reinforces resistance to change, especially when the benefits of the new approach are not immediately clear.

This is all to say I am excited to finish my education journey, for now. However, I am also facing all of these feelings about what is next. I am working towards a better future for myself and the people I care about. Understanding why I have the resistance to these changes helps me be more in control, even when a lot of the changes in my life are completely out of my control. Understanding resistance to personal change will help us understand why it appears so consistently across technology, business, and politics too. When writing this one I came across this article sharing good tips to overcome uncertainty.

My idea for this blog was to cover recent tech developments and where they are going. Unfortunately, the past few weeks have been rough to say the least. Next week I will dive into more recent tech news. If this breakdown resonated with you, and if you think I missed a major reason people resist change, I’d love to hear from you.