A big reason why many of us can’t seem to change our behavior and move in the direction of the things we want is fear. Understanding this is easy, yet simply knowing that fear is holding us back usually isn’t enough to produce the types of changes necessary for us to take action towards our desires. Why not? It’s because when we are in a fearful state of mind, it’s almost always easier to do nothing, and therefore risk nothing compared to remaining in our current unhappy state. Hence, even if we are unhappy living with whatever it is that we’d like to change, we reason that we can at least bear to continue dealing with it for one more day, and that sort of thinking is usually more comfortable in the moment of choice than embarking on a new and unknown course of action.
Overcome Fear Through Leverage:
The key to overcoming fear and making constructive change is a concept called leverage. The idea has its roots in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and is based upon the fact that we as humans will typically do much more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. We place a higher value on avoiding painful situations than we do on taking potentially positive actions into unknown and “risky” areas.
This fear of change is a basic concept of self preservation that has been hard wired into our neurology for millions of years. The way to initiate desired changes in our lives is not to fight against our neurology but rather to work with it to help us to accomplish the things we desire. The best way to demonstrate this concept is by using an example:
Suppose for a moment that you are in a job or relationship that you don
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1 Mike Morrison // Apr 10, 2008 at 11:08 am
Great article. One of those pieces you write and it ends up having a magical timing effect…where people seem to read it exactly when they need to hear it.