Why is change so hard?
Why is it so hard to change?
This is a photo of my 3-year-old Apple MacBook. I am notoriously hard on my laptops and lately it’s been showing me all the signs that it’s on its last legs. And yet, in this photo (taken today) it sits on top of the unboxed new MacBook I purchased on Black Friday to replace it.
More than three months after purchasing the replacement laptop that I know will step change my productivity and reduce a ton of day-to-day frustration – I still haven’t made the switch!
Why have I been so resistant to this change? I need to figuratively (and literally!) unpack this.
✅ Lack of motivation – If my old laptop had been lost, stolen or completely fried, I would have unboxed the new laptop immediately. Because my current MacBook still works well enough – I am clearly not highly motivated to invest the time and energy required to make the switch.
✅ Habit – My morning routine has become a fine-tuned series of tightly woven and particularly ordered habits – making it challenging to break from my current routine. So days and weeks go by, and I find myself still plodding away on the old laptop because it’s habitual to do so.
✅ Fear – Having purchased a different model, with new features and functionality, there is some fear of the unknown at play here. I have become so used to operating extremely effectively on the machine I use now that there is some fear around transitioning to something new and how that might (negatively) impact the way I work.
✅ Emotional attachment – My old laptop and I covered a lot of emotional, professional and physical ground together. Do I have a genuine emotional connection to this little machine and is there a part of me that is finding it difficult to say goodbye and let go?
✅ External pressures – Like most professionals, virtually every minute of my day is jam packed with meetings and overshadowed with looming deadlines. Even those rare meeting-free days quickly get filled with the long-neglected items on my to-do list. It seems almost indulgent to carve out the time for computer transition when there are so many more (seemingly) pressing things to attend to!
✅ Past experience – Having experienced or heard the many horror stories of laptop transitions gone wrong – there is a trepidation about making myself vulnerable to photo losses, file mishaps or sync issues.
As an innovation practitioner, whether it’s helping a company adopt an innovation culture or facilitating the creation of products that require consumers to change the way they think or behave – change is at the heart of what I do every day. And yet – I am reminded by this example in my own life, how challenging it can be and how critical it is to remove the friction that gets in the way.
Has anyone else experienced the same resistance to change in their own lives?