Have you ever had this experience, where you have wanted to take action in some area of your life, you know exactly what to do, but despite all the best intentions and planning you don’t take the action required. I experienced this in my previous job, I had known for 3 years prior to leaving that I wanted to leave. I made plans, talked about it with family and yet never actually took the action to leave until just after the first COVID lock down. Even then when I took the action of leaving my job it was more about “burn out” than anything else. By the time I actually left I needed about 6 months holiday simply to recover from the exhaustion. Not ideal, so why didn’t I take the action of leaving 3 years earlier when I first started to realise it was time to move on.

At the time I had no idea, of course, now I know it is because of a variation of “Newtons third law”, which proposes that there are always equal opposing forces in play. So, for every desire we have for change there is a corresponding degree of resistance to it, because as humans we are designed to maintain a “status quo” or “homeostasis”. This innate design when combine with opposing desires creates an internal place of conflict that keeps us stuck.

We are designed as humans to be attached to the comfort and predictability of the known, that old saying of “the devil you know” comes to mind. So any interest we have in change tends to activate or trigger resistance. What happens next if we don’t understand what is happening is we judge ourselves for our “lack” of commitment, or action or for wanting what we want. We get angry with ourselves and usually anyone else who we think might be getting in the way.

Don’t get me wrong, most of us initially take actions, and start committed, we put a lot of thought into it and make plans, however over time we begin to make excuses or exceptions and then they become more frequent until eventually we stop taking any action towards the change at all, and some of us may start to tell ourselves some pretty horrible things around this point. One of the things I told myself is that “I was a coward, and this caused me to feel a lot of shame”, that’s not a feeling any one takes quality action from.

The only way forward when we have competing desires is to be brutally honest with ourselves regarding why we might want to keep the status quo, where is the benefit in it for us, because with out a doubt there is one or their would be no competition/resistance there would only be action. In my situation, on reflection, I realised that my job gave me financial security and a sense of independence and if I gave it up, I would lose both of those things, because what I planned to do next (own my own business) was not going to provide either of those at least initially.

The essential component to taking action is recognising what the opposing desires at play are, then showing ourselves compassion regarding what we perceive as our lack or for wanting what we want. Self-negative judgement only strengthens resistance, we need to show ourselves compassion, kindness, forgiveness and understanding, only then do we give ourselves a safe space to be honest in.

From this place we can see more clearly and with a change of perspective that supports the change and allows us to begin taking the steps towards that action with consistency.

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I appreciate you all, thanks for reading, and have a great week. :)