Why resolutions fail, and what to do about it.
You resolve to make a change for the better in your
life.
You tell your friends about it.
You put your resolution in writing.
You actually make the change.
It works.
It feels good.
You're happy about it.
Your friends are happy about it.
Your life is better.
Then you backslide.
Why?
Are you some kind of slob who has no willpower?
Not necessarily.
Backsliding is a universal experience.
Every one of us resists significant change, no matter whether it's for the worse or for
the better.
Our body, brain, and behavior have a built-in tendency
to stay the same within rather narrow limits, and to snap back when changed, and it's a
very good thing they do.
Just think about it: If your body temperature moved up or down by 10 percent, you'd be in
big trouble.
The same thing applies to your blood sugar level, and to any number of other functions
of your body.
This condition of equilibrium, this resistance to change, is called homeostasis.
It characterizes all self-regulating systems, from a bacterium
to a frog to a human individual, to a family, to an organization,
to an entire culture—and it applies to psychological
states and behavior as well as to physical functioning.
The simplest example of homeostasis can be found
in your home heating system.
The thermostat on the wall senses the room temperature; when the
temperature on a winter's day drops below the level you've
set, the thermostat sends an electrical signal that turns
the heater on.
The heater completes the loop by sending heat to the room in which the thermostat
is located.
When the room temperature reaches the level you've set, the thermostat sends an
electrical signal back to the heater, turning it off,
thus maintaining homeostasis.
Keeping a room at the right temperature takes only
one feedback loop.
Keeping even the simplest single celled organism alive and well takes thousands.
And maintaining a human being in a state of homeostasis
takes billions of interweaving electrochemical signals
pulsing in the brain, rushing along nerve fibers,
coursing through the bloodstream.
Homeostasis in social groups brings additional feedback loops into play.
Although we might think that our culture is mad for the new,
the predominant function of all this—as with the
feedback loops in your body—is the survival of
things as they are.
The problem is, homeostasis works to keep things
as they are even if they aren't very good.
Let's say, for instance, that for the last twenty years—ever
since high school, in fact—you've been almost
entirely sedentary.
Now most of your friends are working out, and you figure that if you can't beat the
fitness revolution, you'll join it.
Buying the tights and running shoes is fun, and so are the first few steps
as you start jogging on the high school track near your
house.
Then, about a third of the way around the first lap,
something terrible happens.
Maybe you're suddenly sick to your stomach.
Maybe you're dizzy.
Maybe there's a strange, panicky feeling in your
chest.
Maybe you're going to die.
What's more, the particular sensations you're feeling probably aren't
significant in themselves.
What you're really getting is a homeostatic alarm signal—bells clanging,
lights flashing.
Warning!
Warning!
Significant changes in respiration, heart rate, metabolism.
Whatever you're doing, stop doing it immediately!
Homeostasis, remember, doesn't distinguish between
what you would call change for the better and
change for the worse.
It resists all change.
After twenty years without exercise, your body regards
a sedentary style of life as "normal"; the beginning
of a change for the better is interpreted as
a threat.
So you walk slowly back to your car, figuring
you'll look around for some other revolution to join.
Take another case, involving a family of five.
The father happens to be an alcoholic who goes
on a binge every six to eight weeks.
During the time he's drinking, and for several days afterward,
the family is in an uproar.
It's nothing new.
These periodic uproars have become, in fact, the normal state
of things.
Then, for one reason or another, the father stops drinking.
You'd think that everyone in the family would be happy, and they are—for a while.
But homeostasis has strange and sneaky ways of
striking back.
There's a pretty good chance that within a very
few months some other family member (say, a teenage
son) will do something (say, get caught dealing dr^gs) to create just the type of uproar the
father's binges previously triggered.
Without wise professional counsel, the members of this family won't
realize that the son, unknowingly, has simply taken
the father's place to keep the family system in
the condition that has become stable and "normal."
No need here to count the ways that organizations and cultures resist change and backslide when
change does occur.
Just let it be said that the resistance here (as in other cases) is proportionate to the
size and speed of the change, not to whether the change
is a favorable or unfavorable one.
If an organizational or cultural reform meets tremendous resistance,
it is because it's either a tremendously bad idea or a tremendously
good idea.
Trivial change, bureaucratic meddling, is much easier to accept, and that's
one reason why you see so much of it.
In the same way, the talkier forms of psychotherapy are acceptable,
at least to some degree, perhaps because they
sometimes change nothing very much except the patient's
ability to talk about his or her problems.
But none of this is meant to condemn homeostasis.
We want our minds and bodies and organizations to hold
together.
We want that paycheck to arrive on schedule.
In order to survive, we need stability.
Still, change does occur.
Individuals change.
Families change.
Organizations and entire cultures change.
Homeostats are reset, even though the process might cause a certain amount of anxiety, pain,
and upset.
The questions are: How do you deal with homeostasis?
How do you make change for the better easier?
How do you make it last?
These questions rise to great importance when you
embark on the path of mastery.
Say that after years of hacking around in your career, you decide
to approach it in terms of the principles of mastery.
Your whole life obviously will change, and thus
you'll have to deal with homeostasis.
But even if you should begin applying mastery to pursuits such as gardening
or tennis, which might seem less than central
to your existence, the effects of the change might
ripple out to touch almost everything you do.
Realizing significantly more of your potential in almost anything
can change you in many ways.
And however much you enjoy and profit from the change, you'll probably
meet with homeostasis sooner or later.
You might experience homeostatic alarm signals in the
form of physical or psychological symptoms.
You might unknowingly sabotage your own best efforts.
You might get resistance from family, friends, and co-workers.
Ultimately, you'll have to decide if you really do
want to spend the time and effort it takes to get on
and stay on the path.
If you do, here are five guidelines that might help.
One.
Be aware of the way homeostasis works.
This might be the most important guideline of all.
Expect resistance and backlash.
Realize that when the alarm bells start ringing, it doesn't necessarily
mean you're sick or crazy or lazy or that you've made
a bad decision in embarking on the journey of mastery.
In fact, you might take these signals as an indication
that your life is definitely changing—just what
you've wanted.
Of course, it might be that you have started something that's not right for you; only you
can decide.
But in any case, don't panic and give up at the
first sign of trouble.
You might also expect resistance from friends and
family and co-workers.
Say you used to struggle out of bed at 7:30 and barely
drag yourself to work at 9:00.
Now that you're on a path of mastery, you're up at 6:00 for a three-mile
run, and in the office, charged with energy, at 8:30.
You might figure that your co-workers would be
overjoyed, but don't be too sure.
And when you get home, still raring to go, do you think that
your family will welcome the change?
Maybe.
Bear in mind that an entire system has to change when any part
of it changes.
So don't be surprised if some of the people you love start covertly or overtly undermining
your self-improvement.
It's not that they wish you harm, it's just homeostasis at work.
Two.
Be willing to negotiate with your resistance to
change.
So what should you do when you run into resistance, when the red lights flash and
the alarm bells ring?
Well, you don't back off, and you don't bull your way through.
Negotiation is the ticket to successful long-term change in everything
from increasing your running speed to transforming your organization.
The long-distance runner working for a faster time on a measured course negotiates
with homeostasis by using pain not as an adversary but as
the best possible guide to performance.
It also demands a determination to keep pushing, but not without
awareness.
Simply turning off your awareness to the warnings deprives you of guidance and risks
damaging the system.
Simply pushing your way through despite the warning signals increases the
possibility of backsliding.
You can never be sure exactly where the resistance will pop up.
A feeling of anxiety?
Psychosomatic complaints?
A tendency toward self-sabotage?
Squabbles with family, friends, or fellow workers?
None of those?
Stay alert.
Be prepared for serious negotiations.
Three.
Develop a support system.
You can do it alone, but it helps a great deal to have other people
with whom you can share the joys and perils of
the change you're making.
The best support system would involve people who have gone through or are going
through a similar process, people who can tell their
own stories of change and listen to yours, people
who will brace you up when you start to backslide and encourage you when you don't.
The path of mastery, fortunately, almost always fosters
social groupings.
Johan Huizinga comments upon the tendency of sports and games to
bring people together.
The play community, he points out, is likely to continue even after
the game is over, inspired by "the feeling of being
'apart together' in an exceptional situation, of sharing something
important, of mutually withdrawing from the rest of the world and rejecting the usual
norms."
The same can be said about many other pursuits,
whether or not they are formally known as sports—arts
and crafts, hunting, fishing, yoga, Zen, the professions.
And what if your quest for mastery is a lonely one?
What if you can find no fellow voyagers on that particular
path?
At the least, you can let the people close to you know what you're doing, and ask for
their support.
Four.
Follow a regular practice.
People embarking on any type of change can gain stability and
comfort through practicing some worthwhile activity
on a more or less regular basis, not so much for the
sake of achieving an external goal as simply for its own sake.
A traveler on the path of mastery is again fortunate,
for practice in this sense is the foundation of the path itself.
The circumstances are particularly happy in case you've already established a
regular practice in something else before facing the
challenge and change of beginning a new one.
It's easier to start applying the principles of mastery
to your profession or your primary relationship if you've already
established a regular morning exercise program.
Practice is a habit, and any regular practice provides
a sort of underlying homeostasis, a stable base during
the instability of change.
Five.
Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.
We tend to forget that learning is much more than
book learning.
To learn is to change.
Education, whether it involves books, body, or behavior, is a process that
changes the learner.
It doesn't have to end at college graduation or at age forty or sixty or eighty,
and the best learning of all involves learning how
to learn— that is, to change.
The lifelong learner is essentially one who has learned to deal with homeostasis,
simply because he or she is doing it all the time.
Lifelong learning is the special province of those who travel the path of mastery,
the path that never ends.
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