Why Is It So Hard?
Many internal factors can usurp our ability to maintain focus on what we want. And while these challenges are all going on inside, many outside factors poke and prod and clamor for our attention. Some we can control, and some we can’t.
Here are nine primary factors that get in the way and make it difficult to change behavior.
It’s hard to get out of ruts. I talked about driving in the winter on the interstate in South Dakota. The accumulated ice on the well-traveled roadways creates ruts that my car’s tires always seem to settle into as I drive, almost like I’m operating on autopilot. Well-traveled pathways like these are also created in our brains. It is very difficult to get out of the path that is most traveled and the easiest to tread.
Unproductive Repetitive Behavior
What causes those ruts is the repetitive nature of our thoughts, actions, and behaviors. We like the sense of assurance that we know what’s going to happen. We develop traditions such as holiday celebrations and habits such as driving the same route to work each day. But there are lots of things we do repetitively that are unproductive, such as nagging our kids to do chores or procrastinating on important projects.
Comfort Zone
We seek comfort, and familiarity breeds comfort. Even when we honestly reflect and recognize that certain actions and behaviors are not positive and are not serving us well, we continue to behave in the same way because we’ve been there. We feel a level of comfort with what is known and familiar. It is difficult to push outside that comfort zone.
Lack of Neuropathways
Most of us have limited neuropathways, or roadways, in our minds. Our experiences have programmed our brains with a small number of options for dealing with situations, and we handle them the same way or with only slight variations. What we need are multiple pathways that allow us to be far more flexible and agile. Without multiple pathways, our brains slide into familiar and well-traveled ruts. When we have multiple pathways in our brains, the process of changing and making changes is significantly easier.
Fear
We all have fears, and the most important thing we can do is acknowledge them. Fear is kind of like a virus on a computer. You can’t really see it, and you often don’t know what’s causing it, but it’s problematic. It’s important to recognize what makes you fearful so you can deal with those fears. Important caveat: The advice here addresses typical fears that may be addressed with acknowledgment and actions, not psychological issues such as phobias, for which professional intervention is recommended.
Lack of Clarity
When people are not crystal clear about what they want, they do not know what they’re aiming for. There is a tendency to say, “I want to be successful” or “I want to do well” or “I want this to work.” These are vague statements that do not lend themselves to identifying specific action steps. Vague desires result in lack of direction and inaction.
Lack of Agility
Being stuck in ruts and trapped in repetitive activity greatly reduces agility. We’re just letting things go along. It has never been more dangerous to allow this to keep happening. It hampers our ability to move and capture opportunities as they reveal themselves because we are so often on autopilot. We miss opportunities because we are asleep at the wheel.
Unproductive Relationship Habits
It is not uncommon that we hang around with people who make it a lot easier for us to stay with that old behavior and resist change. There is a powerful reason for very carefully selecting the people you hang around with. Conversing with others creates neuropathways in your brain. Synaptic connections may occur whether you are talking or listening and observing. A scientific experiment of 
mirror neurons demonstrated this fact: A device was attached to a monkey’s brain. When the monkey picked up a peanut, there was an audible sound indicating that a neuroplastic connection (pathway between nerve cells) had occurred. Scientists repeated the experiment, and every time the monkey picked up the peanut, the audible sound was triggered. One day, one of the scientists reached over and picked up the peanut. When the monkey observed this, the audible sound occurred. This was a very interesting finding to the scientists. The monkey did not actually have to grab the peanut to create a synaptic connection. Just watching someone else grab it enabled a new neural pathway to form.
VUCA
This is an acronym borrowed from the Army War College. VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Bob Johansen, from the prestigious Institute for the Future, uses the acronym to describe the world in which we live and recommends ways we can proactively deal with these challenges. At the time this book is written, our current VUCA environment exacerbates people’s natural tendency to remain safe and stick with what’s familiar. But what we need is the opposite. This is a time when people need to be open to change and to take charge of their own behaviors—that is, operate with a Seeing Red Cars mind-set.