Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
– Albert Einstein
Why is it so hard for us to change? The answer lies in the empirical models that psychologists have created in the 138 years (and counting) that they’ve spent working on this problem.
To get to the answer, I’d like to introduce you to Edgar Schein. He was a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and earned a Ph.D in social psychology from Harvard and a Master’s Degree in psychology from Stanford. Basically, Schein is a smart dude who applied his theoretical psychology learnings to business. (Companies like Google invite him over to teach them about organizational culture, so you know he’s not just a laboratory guy.)
In 1995, Schein wrote a fascinating paper on Kurt Lewin’s Change Theory. Lewin is widely considered the founder of social psychology and had created a “model of the change process in human systems…based on empirical reality.” Let’s break this model down to understand how we change.
1. Dissatisfaction
The change cycle begins when we become dissatisfied with some aspect of our lives. Here are some examples:
- I’m unemployed.
- I’m working too hard.
- I hate my job.
- I dislike being single.
- I don’t think this relationship is going as well as I’d like it to.
- I hate the relationship I’m in.
2. Guilt and Regret
As time passes, this dissatisfaction grows into guilt and regret — for not achieving your full potential. These emotions serve as fuel that motivates us to change. Examples of guilt and regret include:
- If I had started applying for jobs six months ago, I might already have an awesome job today.
- I’ve been working so hard over the last three months that I haven’t had any time to hang out with my friends and family. I even missed out on my best friend’s birthday party.
- I’ve been working at this dead end job for two years. I would have been so much happier if I had just quit my job a year ago.
- If I had just started dating three years ago, I might already be in an amazing relationship. Instead, I’m single and alone.
- If I had just talked to my significant other last month about how they don’t spend enough time with me (or wants to spend too much time with me), our relationship would be so much better.
- If I had broken up with my significant other last year, I would have been so much happier and may have even met someone better by now.
3. Fear of Failure
These feelings of guilt and regret are strong forces of change, but they’re not enough for change to occur. Why? Because the more guilt and regret we feel, the greater our fear of failure becomes in order to maintain a state of psychological equilibrium. Here are some examples of this fear:
- What if I apply for jobs and nobody wants to hire me?
- What if I stop working as hard or ask my boss to lower my workload and I don’t get a promotion because of that? Or worse, I get fired?
- What if I quit and get a job that’s even worse?
- What if I start dating and get rejected?
- What if I bring up this issue with my significant other and it blows the relationship up?
- What if I break up with my significant other and end up alone?
Here’s the thing. This counterforce of fear is actually a good thing in many cases. Without it, we’d whiplash back and forth every time we felt guilt or regret and we’d never commit to anyone or anything. If this fear didn’t exist, the moment we’ve settled down, the next dissatisfying whim would come along and carry us away. We actually need this fear in order to develop deep, fulfilling, and worthwhile relationships and accomplishments in our lives.
So what happens when our fear of failure exceeds the intensity of the guilt and regret we feel? Well, we subconsciously try to forget the original dissatisfaction in order to minimize our feelings of guilt and regret. We develop this (un)intentional amnesia of our dissatisfaction and convince ourselves to maintain the status quo. And so we go back to step one of the change cycle and start all over again.
Schein summarizes this aptly: “Adapting poorly or failing to meet our creative potential often looks more desirable than risking failure and loss of self-esteem in the learning process.”
4. Break the Cycle
Lannister, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell, they’re all just spokes on a wheel. This one’s on top and that one’s on top and on and on it spins, crushing those on the ground. We’re not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.
– Daenerys Targaryen [Game of Thrones]
So how do we break the cycle? Fortunately, psychologists have found a wide range of scientifically proven interventions — actions designed to bring about change in people. I’ll save answering this question for another post.
Wise Quotes
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some wise quotes…
Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.
– Henry Ford
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
– Michael Jordan
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.
– Henry Ford
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
– Albert Einstein
If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.
– Vincent Van Gogh
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash
