Peak Performance Newsletter #8 | On Why We Fail to Change
On Why We Fail to Change
I've been spending a great deal of time thinking about why attempts to change behavior fail.
There's no shortage of research on the topic. There are books upon books and psychological models upon psychological models explaining the science of behavior.
If you've heard me talk about this, you know I'm a huge fan of Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is THE resource to use to optimize the tactical implementation of behavior change. It's based on the psychological model of Cue-Craving-Response-Reward and is jam packed with science and tactical advice to optimize your ability to enact behaviors you want to embrace and shed behaviors you don't.
I'm also a huge fan of BJ Fogg's Model: B=MAP. From Fogg's website:
Here's the simplest way to explain it: "Behavior (B) happens when Motivation (M), Ability (A), and a Prompt (P) come together at the same moment."
I find these resources incredibly useful. And yet I've seen, in myself and others, attempts at behavior change fail even when nearly every tactical element of the implementation is optimized according to these models. This raises the question: Why does behavior change fail when, tactically, we seem to be doing everything right?
As with all things, when the tactical fails it means we need to go deeper, often diving into what may be happening deep in our unconscious. In my exploration, I've found three possible causes of failure:
Wrong Thing: The outcome of the behavior change isn't something that we really want
Wrong Time: The outcome of the behavior change IS something that we really want, but is too unimportant in our hierarchy of unmet needs
Uncertainty: The outcome of the behavior change is something that we truly want and is most relevant on our hierarchy of unmet needs, but we are sufficiently uncertain that the behavior or process will create the desired outcome
The Wrong Thing: Not really wanting the outcome
We all like to think that we know what we want. More often than not we don't!
One common error in western thinking is that we can know what we want a priori (prior to experience) or from first principles (reason alone). We're asked "what do you want to be when you grow up" as children, as if that question has any semblance of usefulness to it. What a ridiculous notion! How the hell can we know what we want without having tried it in earnest?
Tim Urban at Wait but Why has an amazing article on the uniqueness of Elon Musk's style of thinking. One important element of it is that Elon constructs every way he thinks as a dynamic, evolving feedback loop. The summarizing visual captures it well:
This model of thinking illuminates one huge reason why behavior change fails: when we seek to pursue an outcome and change our behavior, we only have a hypothesis that this is what we want. After we begin, we may gather data that indicates that it's not what we want after all.
Whether they’re socially adopted or just plan mistaken, we find that our desires are a wrong fit all of the time. I actually think this is representative of a healthy process. If I can use this insight to create positivity, it's this: feel no shame in discarding paths that don't feel right after you set out on them. You've invalidated a hypothesis and learned something about yourself, which is valuable in its own right.
I did this with at least three different professions in college. I committed, started studying, interviewed professionals in the field, and realized "fuck no", I do not want to work alone in a lab/write useless, masturbatory papers in an ivory tower/rot in a corporate cubicle.
That being said, oftentimes the complication is more nuanced than that. What’s going on when we feel strongly about our desire for the thing, yet still identify a strong resistance?
The Wrong Time: Subjugated by more pressing needs
What's going on when there are things that we know we want deep at our core, yet seem to continuously punt pursuing them for months, or sometimes even years or decades?
For a little background, I'd like to introduce Maslow's hierarchy of needs:
You can read a summary of Maslow's theory here, but for the tl;dr: the above pyramid represents a hierarchy of human needs. Humans must meet needs from the bottom up, and needs lower down in the pyramid must be met before higher tiers can be pursued.
I think this provides a huge reason for why a lot of behavior change fails: you're aspiring for something that is too high on the pyramid, and so your unconscious mind fights you every step of the way.
Of course you want to learn the cello, but if you feel financially insecure or psychologically unsafe in your relationships, you're gonna get into a hell of a fight with your unconscious mind to table working on those things while you practice concertos.
This is an argument for sequencing. You can easily spend years or decades of your life locked into a battle with yourself, wondering the entire time why you keep failing. With this model, the solution is simple: put first things first.
Tend to your mental health. Work toward financial security. Build your community.
It's okay to table more actualizing needs while you work on your foundation. Don't feel guilty! You're a human animal, and this is a piece of the puzzle. In the end, many of those lower needs are what you really want anyway.
One caveat: needs being met doesn't mean that needs are perfectly met. You don't need to be making the big bucks and have the perfect friend group to transcend to higher levels of the hierarchy. Needs simply need to be met, not optimized. And so really, just pay attention. I've found that you can feel when higher levels start to become accessible. The key is to be patient, and then enthusiastically jump in when you feel it.
Uncertainty in the Process
And now the final layer: Why does behavior change fail when it's something that we authentically want, the timing is right, AND our tactical implementation is strong?
Simple: we don't trust the process. We don't have sufficient belief that our course of action will get us to where we want to go.
Why do countless gym goers who have new-year-resolved to revolutionize their health starting January stop going to the gym by February?
Some of them don't really want to improve their health. But many do.
And for some the timing is wrong. But for many the timing, from a needs standpoint, is as good as it could be!
And for others the tactical implementation is the problem. But plenty get that right too.
For many of these folks, it's the simple fact that they don't have a process that they believe can get them to where they want to go. They show up to the gym, blindly working out to some routine they read about in a blog on the internet. They adjust their diet to the newest fad. They piecemeal their health program together from unproven sources without developing an understanding of how improving your health works. When they aren't seeing results a month in, they have no clue if that's normal, if they're doing something right or wrong, or how to adjust.
They don't have a process in which they have either:
A sufficient causal or mechanistic understanding of the underlying dynamics to know what will move them toward the outcome they want
A sufficient demonstration of success by others
They want it badly, but they are alone wandering in a dark room. At this point, the solutions are simple:
Hard mode: Self-educate. Learn the underlying dynamics and construct a reliable process yourself.
Easy mode: Find someone who has either recently accomplished the change you want or has demonstrated success helping people like you achieve the change. Follow their advice or process. Use them for accountability.
In Summary
Want to become an all-star at behavior change? My advice:
Learn the fundamentals of tactical excellence at behavior change. Read Atomic Habits. Learn about models of behavior change like BJ Fogg's.
Give yourself permission to drop goals if they feel wrong. Minimize time-wasted when things don't feel right.
Give yourself permission to shelve things if they don't feel sufficiently important. Once more, don't waste time. Give yourself permission to work up the hierarchy of needs. It's actually the fastest way to get things done.
If everything else is right but you're still swimming in uncertainty, find a process that YOU BELIEVE will work. The most important element is that you truly believe it will get you where you want to be. It doesn't need to be perfect. But if you've seen a demonstrated track record of success and believe it'll work for you, commit and get after it.
A Story
Feel free to skip this if you're content with the model. But I wanted to provide a personal anecdote to help cement it in.
Earlier this year, as I was building my coaching practice, I went through a period where I was struggling to make calls that I knew were important to building the practice. As I spoke about this with my own coach (yes, I have a coach), I came up with an analogy that I thought was brilliant: "I need a gym bag equivalent for the calls."
What did that mean? I've had a really amazing year for physical health. And one thing I attribute that to is setting my gym bag outside my bedroom door the night before a workout. This serves as a form of symbolic commitment: when I wake up and see the bag, I know that my prior self had already decided that I am going to the gym.
As I explored this analogy and looked for a reliable trigger to make the calls, I realized something else was going on. Part of the magic of the gym bag lay in my belief of the underlying process: I had an unwavering faith that if I simply got in the gym and trained hard, the results would come.
As I inspected this for the business, I realized I lacked that same faith for the calls. I hadn't connected the dots between how my growth strategy would drive the outcomes that I wanted. There was simply too much uncertainty.
The work to be done wasn't finding the trigger, it was having conversations with successful people and going through the mental exercise to envision how this process would create what I sought to build.
It worked. After some introspection about the business I wanted to build and how I wanted to build it, I saw that authentically connecting with others, inviting them into my vision, and requesting help was precisely how I wanted to build it, even if it might take longer than I initially wanted.
Faith was restored. I could get back to work, and get after it.
Cheers!
Justin