Why change is difficult.

Why change is difficult.

1. We are creatures of habit. It’s in our blueprint.
2. And this is because our brains work on prediction. The brain predicts the nice feelings that follow a nice biscuit.
3. To change the predictive map you need to change association. Link biscuits with diabetes.
4. Everything we do, we do for a subconscious reason. This makes change effortful.
5. The analogy is the elephant and the handler. If the elephant is happy, it will work as directed by its handler.  If the elephant is unhappy, the handler will have almost no control over the elephant.
6. The unconscious – or old brain – is like the elephant. The conscious brain, particularly the frontal lobes, are the handler.
7. To successfully lose weight, give up an unhelpful habit like drinking, gambling or smoking, improve your posture or get rid of chronic pain, you must address your elephant and make it happy!
8. The old brain is the automatic stuff: eye movements, body movements, breathing, posture, hunger, digestion, mood, desire and so on. Virtually all my blogs address these things, so any that suit you will aid change.
9. When you are in the process of changing a habit, this is controlled by the frontal lobes and takes a lot of effort from them. You need to feed your brain to give it energy. All goes well until we are hungry, tired – and stressed. And then the elephant is out of control.
10. To feed the brain it needs fuel, breathing and activation. Fuel is good food = food you’ve cooked yourself. as much as possible from scratch.  Breathing is good breathing = breathe without your shoulders rising at all.  Activation is actually movement, which is problematic if you’re trying to get into the exercise habit!  Any movement helps, and if that really isn’t possible, try a decent breathing drill instead.
11. All of which leads to: there is no such thing as will power. Relying on will power alone is doomed to failure and beating yourself up after a failure is unhelpful.  Much better to get curious: how do I make my elephant happy?