Why Do We Hate Change?
How to stop being scared of what you want the most.
Change is scary; everyone who has gone through significant changes in their lives can agree. Change and fear walk hand in hand. But why do changes in our lives create anxiety responses? Why is it that nerves can threaten to overcome even the most straightforward aspects of our lives? How can we learn to control those fears and turn them into a force for good?
I have been through periods of change, initially changing career from Artist to Technologist and then supporting businesses to change for the last five years. I have become increasingly fascinated by how differently people react to changes in their environment. Why some people can move from city to city without a second thought, yet others never leave their hometowns. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. But as the world changes faster, those who don’t respond are likely to be left behind.
In my work supporting change initiatives, I’ve had to fully understand the nature of the things I ask of people. If you are terrified of changes in your life, then understanding what happens under the hood, can not only make it easier but make it enjoyable.
To get to the crux of why some people (myself included) don’t like change, we should first look at what happens biologically.
Fear Of Change.
The moment we begin to panic, we receive a shot of adrenaline. Adrenaline gives you the energy you need to deal with the threat. In primordial times, when our bodies first developed, there was a lot of danger. We had to either fight or run to stay alive. Both of these reflexes require energy, and that’s what adrenaline does. Today this means our bodies provide a sledgehammer to hammer in a picture hook. We end up with far too much energy to focus on the cause of the anxiety.
It’s a testament to the success of humanity that stress even factors into our lives today. But just because the fear may not be as life-threatening as our brains believe, the impact is still real. If left unchecked, stress can spiral out of control and trigger panic attacks, weaken the immune system and worse.
Excess adrenaline is why exercise can be so good for our mental health. By exercising, we process the adrenalin. We become less anxious and stress-free. But that’s just a crutch; it doesn’t solve why the adrenaline appears in the first place. To understand that we need to go deeper.
Stress, Fear and Anxiety.
Stress, fear and anxiety are not the same thing, and it’s worth understanding the difference. Stress is how your body deals with disturbances in your equilibrium, changes to your routine, or other influences out of your control. Both Fear and Anxiety are stressors (things that cause stress), but their causes are quite different.
Fear is the response to a precise or known threat (Sadock et al., 2009). Anxiety is the response to an imprecise or unknown threat. So if we think back to David Attenborough documentaries, we’ll remember, if an antelope can only smell the predator but not see them, they’ll often freeze, this is to avoid running directly into danger. This reaction is because the threat is unknown and therefore creates anxiety. The minute the antelope can see or hear the danger; they can pinpoint the predator’s location, the anxiety turns into fear. It can now run knowing it’s escaping to safety.
This response is vital, like the antelope we can’t act on something we can’t see. So as often happens with change if the outcome is unknown, we can often find ourselves “freezing” rather than running straight ahead. It’s essential to take some time to understand what the consequences of any change will be. Both positive or negative, to turn that anxiety into fear. Fear can be motivating; anxiety will leave you stuck.
Stress is not all bad. A little bit of stress can be useful; it’s that feeling you get when you’re focused and on point. If you feel too relaxed when you’re driving, you could fall asleep at the wheel. However, too much stress or stress over an extended period and your performance and health will deteriorate.
So why not just stop going towards change? It can make us anxious, fearful and ultimately make us sick. Why do we even bother? A series of studies in mice that suggests it might not be that simple. Novelty might just be the key to a long and happy life.
The Importance of Novelty.
In the research, there are two behaviour types described; neophilia (the curious and experimentative mouse) and neophobia (the fearful and stressed mouse). Further studies go on to explain the impact these neophobic, and neophilic traits have on the mice, and a surprising trend occurs. Mice who are curious and enjoy new environments live longer and are healthier.
These traits exist in human behaviour. Some people are anxious about leaving the house; others are continually finding new experiences; most of us live somewhere in the middle.
Even more, studies go on to explain that neophobia (and neophilia) form in the mice’s early life. Bad parenting or a lack of support at a young age will create neophobic offspring, whereas good supportive parenting produces neophillic offspring.
If we take the mental leap that we can apply this research to humans, how can we use this information to our benefit? No one chooses to have a lousy childhood; no one asks for unsupportive parents. It doesn’t seem fair to condemn them to a life of anxiety and ill health. Our world is continually changing, and the rate of change is increasing. If we don’t understand how to solve this, we risk leaving a good chunk of society behind.
Support Is Not Just A Family Thing.
So let’s look at neophobia a little bit more deeply. It makes sense that if you have no support growing up, this will train you not to expect help. This lack of support is going to impact your ability to take risks. Your ability to take risks is also a key indicator of confidence.
Equally neophiles among us have likely been supported their entire childhoods and therefore don’t think twice about taking risks. They are likely to be more confident outgoing individuals and often destined for success. The success of privately educated students who leave school with the confidence that the world is their oyster proves this. However, it bears a stark contrast to my career advice at school.
“Being an Astronaut would be too hard Giles, but everyone needs electricians”
So it makes sense, that for a neophobe to become a neophile, they are going to need a support structure around them. Neophobia (like all phobias) is irrational, so being scared of jumping off a cliff isn’t neophobia. But being scared of going for a promotion is.
What does support look like? Support isn’t just saying “I support you”. Equally, it’s not taking away control from that person and micromanaging every aspect of their lives. Buddhists teach us that the first step to offering support is “being present”. What I believe they mean is to be fully engaged in what is truly going on. This means listening to the person, encouraging them to find solutions and offering light touch suggestions, while not taking control. If you couple this with the belief that the person can achieve far more than they think, you’ll be surprised at the results.
Fear And Bravery.
So it feels like we’re making progress, given the right support structure a neophobe could become a neophile. But support only makes it more comfortable; it doesn’t make the fear go away. It’s like a circus performer walking across a high wire, there may or may not be a net beneath them, but the task of walking that wire for the first time is no less difficult. Finding that courage to face that fear and keep walking along that high wire regardless is what makes us feel alive.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela.
It stacks up too. The more you overcome your fears, the more you close your eyes put your t-shirt over your head and run at it, the more you can do it the next time. I’d argue that the more scared you are, the more opportunities you have to prove to your bravery to yourself. Each step, each small fear overcome, will increase your confidence and eventually, it will become addictive. Even if you fail, and everyone fails. You are just one step closer to overcoming your fear.
If you aren’t satisfied with wishy-washy pep talks, and you want to know what’s going on beneath the surface, then some research into the field of neuroplasticity may be of interest.
Training Your Brain.
Neuroplasticity is the ability for your brain to create new pathways (and forget old ones). If you consider your mind a muscle, then the more you work it out (learn new things), the stronger it will get. Just like working out, creating new pathways in your brain takes repetition, the more you repeat a thought process, the stronger it becomes. This plasticity is why affirmations, chants and meditation also have the impact they have. The repetition creates new pathways in your brain and allows you to gain control of how you think.
This plasticity also has the added benefit of making your brain more agile and able to accept new concepts readily. I’ve seen some people term this a “growth mindset”, but in reality, they’re just adults who never stopped learning.
So why do we stop learning?
Fear!
We’ve come full circle; fear stops us learning. I want to touch on one of the biggest and most damaging fears we have, the fear of looking stupid. This fear is likely the primary driver for us stopping learning in adulthood; the learning curve plays a significant role in why adults don’t continue to stretch their brains.
The problem is, from the outside, it can be pretty obvious if someone is still in the “Naively Confident” state. That confidence comes across as arrogance. Again the more we persevere to reach mastery or at the very least the humility of knowing what we don’t know. The more we will grow, and the people around us will recognise that.
Before learning any new skill, you have to understand what you don’t know. This fear of looking stupid or feeling like your starting from scratch can be painful. But becoming comfortable with this might also be the thing that springboards your career and life to the next level.
I remember a conversation I had in my early 20s with the CFO of the company I was working for as an intern.
Me: “how did you get to become CFO?”
CFO: “I learnt to play the guitar”.
That didn’t make any sense to my young self, how could learning to play the guitar make any difference, but now I’m older I think I understand.
You see, working in finance, he had favoured the left side of his brain, the logic centre, and focused on building that up. I don’t pretend to know much about accountancy, but I can’t imagine a much more logical job. However, to take the next step into leadership, he needed to increase the strength of his right hemisphere. Learning the guitar, allowed him to focus on the creative side of his brain making him more stable in his thinking process and more creative in the solutions he found.
So if you’re a left-brain person who focuses on logic and analytical thought in day to day life, learning something creative will help. Whereas if you’re creative, favouring the right side of your brain, learning something logical will help become more balanced.
Overcoming fear can be the hardest thing anyone ever has to do, but the rewards are truly worth it. It puts you in control of your destiny, and your success will skyrocket. If you’re not sure how to start, these are some tips to get the ball rolling.
- Set a goal: What do you want to become/overcome? Knowing and naming what you want will tell your brain the direction to go. Having a clear trajectory will also help you recognise how close you are to achieving your goals.
- Practice introspection: Naming and understanding the thing you’re scared of, turns your response from anxiety which makes us freeze, to fear which makes us act. Consider: Is it even your fears? Or are they just fear passed on from your childhood?
- Exposure: Most psychological therapies to cure phobias focus on exposure, if you’re afraid of snakes, slowly getting closer to snakes will normalise your fear until eventually, you can hold one. I’ve found this is also true of change. Start with small changes and slowly build up, feeling and overcoming the fear with each stage. Beware once you’ve got this down it may become addictive.
- Reflection: Taking the time to recognise the changes that you’ve been through in your life can stabilise you. Reflecting on where you’ve come from can give you perspective and an understanding of how much you’ve overcome.
- Don’t Give Up. Remember, most people won’t even attempt this because it’s too hard. If you do, you differentiate yourself from most people. You will uncap your potential and what you’re capable of will shock you.
If you find yourself in a place where overcoming your fears becomes like second nature, you will be shocked at how empowering it will become. Your future suddenly becomes like clay, free to be shaped and moulded at your whim. All your fears will simply become exciting opportunities to prove how capable you are.
