The REALLY great reasons you aren't moving forward in business (and life).

Why immunity to change is what's actually holding you back.

Good intention is not enough. You are in a tug of war with your own deeper motivations.

We all create new goals and objectives for ourselves, with the best intentions, only to find ourselves months down the road having gotten almost nowhere...

As awful as it feels, it is common and ultimately, human. You are not a screw-up for not moving forward!

Your deepest needs and truths may be secretly stopping you from reaching your goals and dreams.

Getting Real About Immunity to Change

The real reason you aren't moving forward? You don't want to. At least not all of you. Human beings are complex. We are not just one neat little package of motivations that points in a single direction. The good intention to snack less at night gives way to downing the Ben and Jerry's and the real reason you go for that pint of ice cream doesn't have to do with will power. It is a desire for something deeper that drives the choice. Something more important. Something unseen. Enter immunity to change...

What is immunity to change?

According to Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey authors of Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“We uncovered a phenomenon we call “the immunity to change,” a heretofore hidden dynamic that actively (and brilliantly) prevents us from changing because of its devotion to preserving our existing way of making meaning.”

What is the hidden dynamic they speak of?

This hidden dynamic is called a competing commitment. Just like the picture of a tug of war with yourself, a competing commitment will pull in the opposite direction of your stated goals.

I said I wanted to do (_fill in the blank here__) and I meant it!

Of course you did! The part of you that wants to stop eating at night or start exercising or call that marketing coach or invest in that stock really means it. It makes sense and you should do it but you don't! The real reason is that you have just as strong a reason (sometimes more) not to. The real trick is that it isn't obvious.

The stumbling block that's right in front of you that you can't see.

The nature of competing commitments is that they are not obvious. The action that you intend, the plan you make and what you do instead are all obvious. The reason that you do or don't do something is not. Take for example someone that wants to eat better and exercise and comes from a family that has a regular football barbeque schedule.

This person, call him Jeff, vows every week to eat better but when it comes to Sunday Jeff stuffs himself with potato chips and drinks a bunch of beer that he knows will make him gain weight. This is not particularly interesting, we all do stuff like this. What is interesting is the real why. What would really happen if Jeff quit binge eating at the Sunday family get together and stopped drinking beer? Jeff might start loosing weight. Jeff would feel great! Right?

Maybe...

What if, however, Jeff's family started to notice? What if Jeff started to feel alienated from his family, singled out? What if it turned out that family was by far the most important thing in Jeff's life? This starts to point to the possible fallacy that your mind has built. If I am not overweight and eating like my family, I might be less a part of them. I love them. I might loose them. Am I willing to go there? Take that chance? No! So I will keep on eating.

I can hear you saying, yes but what if this isn't true?

Here is the catch. Jeff likely has great reasons to stay connected to his family. The truth is they may or may not accept him as a skinny person but the mind has created a no go zone. It simply isn't worth the risk. Why take a chance on being skinny if there is a chance you could lose touch with the people you love? This is why we don't change.

The chance to grow comes not from brute forcing your self to diet but from gently identifying the potential fallacy in your thinking and testing it. Until your mind starts to see that loosing weight won't take you away from the people you love you won't ever loose weight and keep it off.

You must become the scientist of your own experiment

This experimentation process takes time and attention. It is not a quick fix. But if you work at it a bit, your life will begin to change in ways you cannot imagine.

Our immunity to change is deep and real. Homeostasis, not change, is the norm for most of us. We seek comfort for good reason, and most of the time change happens to us and we adapt. There is another way. By identifying and honoring our competing commitments we can gradually decrease the internal tug of war and make real and lasting progress in our lives.

I would encourage you to look at Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey's excellent work on this subject.