The Fear of Change

Change unsettles us, even when it’s positive. So today I explore why our brains resist it and share simple, compassionate strategies to face change with confidence and resilience.

Transcript

Richard: 0:00

How you doing everybody? Are you good? I got a bit rattled recently and it inspired a podcast episode on Patreon. Look me up on there if you want to hear the full episode, but I'll go into it a bit for you here today.'cause it was something very minor. So my phone updated itself overnight. I opened the photos app in the morning and suddenly everything looked different. It was the same app, but the layout had changed and I'm stood there squinting at the screen, irritated thinking, who asked for this? Now, of course, within a few times of using it, I totally adjusted. But in that first moment, I genuinely felt rattled. All over just an app. And that's my point. If even tiny changes can throw us off, imagine how much more unsettling the big ones are. New jobs, moving house, starting or ending a relationship. Even changes we want, like having children or retiring can stir up anxiety.'cause change is uncomfortable even when it's exciting. Our brains are wired that way. Back in our cave man days change meant danger. Usually if a landscape was different, it might mean predators. If the food source changed, it might mean uncertainty and hunger. So our nervous system learned that same equals safe and different equals risk. Hundreds of thousands of years later, our amygdala still reacts the same way. It doesn't know the difference between a new phone layout and a sabretoothed cat. It just registers unfamiliar, and sounds the alarm. That's why we resist change. There's even a term for it. We call it the status quo bias. And I so wish for those of you watching a video version of this that I owned a Status Quo T-shirt, but I don't,'cause that would've been hilarious. But the status quo bias means we'd rather stick with the uncomfortable thing we know, than face the uncertainty of something new. That's why people stay in jobs they don't like, or relationships that aren't working. It's not that they don't want better, it's that their brain sees the uncertainty as more threatening than the original discomfort. Now, when faced with change, we usually react in a few fairly predictable ways all related to the fight or flight response. So some people fight. They complain, they push back, they argue. Others flee. They avoid the change altogether, putting it off for months or years. Then there's the freeze where you sit stuck at the crossroads, paralysed by indecision. Now, none of these reactions mean you are broken. They just mean you're human. But the thing is, change, for all its fear, often carries hidden opportunities. If you think back to times in your life, maybe when you didn't get a choice, maybe you lost a job or a relationship ended, something like that. At the time something awful happened, but looking back, maybe that's how you found your strength or discovered something new. Change is a doorway. On one side, it's familiar. On the other side it's uncertain, but if we walk through it, we might find rooms we didn't even know existed. So the first step to dealing with change is to shrink it down.'cause big changes are gonna overwhelm us. But small changes don't tend to. If you wanna change jobs, don't think about the whole thing. Just open a blank document and type CV at the top. That's step one. The smallest action breaks the paralysis, you see. Secondly, reframe uncertainty as curiosity. Instead of what if it goes wrong? Think, I wonder what I can learn from this?'cause it's the same situation, but you're gonna create a totally different mindset. And share it. Don't go through change alone. Talk to your friends, lean on family. Work with a therapist if you need to. Talking about your fears out loud makes them smaller, you see. But the most important thing is self-compassion. Fear doesn't mean stop. It just means your nervous system is working. So be kind to yourself. Tell yourself, of course, I'm nervous. That's natural. You'll find it much easier to keep moving when you're not shaming yourself or beating yourself up along the way. Change will never feel completely comfortable. It's messy. Two steps forward, one step back. But that doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're in the middle of it, and that's where growth happens. So if you're standing on the edge of something new right now in your life, ask yourself, what's the tiniest thing that I can do to take a step forward today, not next week, not when I feel ready. Today. Even if it's just one small action. Because those little steps are what carry you through the fear into the opportunities that are gonna be waiting for you on the other side. Good luck with that, if that's you, and I'll speak to you again soon. Thanks for listening. Take care.