Actively Creating Change
Written by Jim Salmon, M.A., C.Psych.
When I start working with clients about the idea of creating change with the patterns they’re feeling stuck in, I’ll often talk about one of my most important analogies: the fork in the road. It goes like this:
Every day is a series of choices, big and small. Which side of the bed to roll out of, what clothes to wear, what route do I take to work, so on and so forth. We also make bigger choices each day: am I going to have a difficult confrontation with someone important to me, or avoid it? Am I going go to the gym or just stay on the couch? Am I going to start getting that important task done, or spend some more time scrolling on my phone?
Broadly speaking, any choice we make is ultimately only ever bringing us in one of two directions: closer to the person I would like to be, or farther away from it. If life was easy and we never struggled with any negative thoughts, difficult circumstances, or challenging emotions, then we would spend most of our time making the choice that brought us closer to being the kind of person we want to be! Unfortunately, it’s not this easy, and this is where the problems with our mental health can show up. Difficult thoughts, emotions, memories, or even physical symptoms can show up and start having an impact on how easy it us for us to make the choices we want. Suddenly it starts feeling A LOT harder to have a difficult conversation, or get up and go to the gym, or to stop myself from scrolling for hours on my phone!
In a nutshell: when faced with important choices, our difficult thoughts and feelings grab us, and often drag us away from being the kind of person we want to be.
The Autopilot
Over time many of the choices we make during the day become repetitive and memorized, these become things we start dealing with on “autopilot” - the stuff we don’t really need to think about too much. Our brains are wired to turn many of the choices we make during the day automatic to help us reduce the cognitive load- the point of this system is to give us the mental energy to focus on the more important or difficult choices facing us.
Consider the route you take to get to work or school every day: on your first day, you probably put some hard thought into how to get where you’re going. Maybe you wanted to make sure you weren’t late, or maybe you wanted to get there early to impress the new boss; at the time it was an important choice. Eventually, after taking that route for months on end day after day, your mind doesn’t need to concentrate on it the way it used to. It’s become something your brain handles without asking for a lot of input from you, and before you know it you can do it on “autopilot”. Sounds pretty good, right?
Unfortunately, the autopilot can also start coming into play with unwanted behaviors too. Consider the example of spending too much time on our phones scrolling on social media. When I am struggling with anxiety, depression, or any kind of difficult thought or emotion, it can be all too easy to distract myself using my phone. In this example, I might actually be wanting to spend my time exercising, socializing, or getting some work done, but the presence of difficult thoughts or feelings makes it feel harder to do these things! Eventually, after I use my phone to distract myself day after day, this process also becomes something we start doing on autopilot. All of a sudden we start feeling trapped or stuck in this pattern, finding it more and more difficult to break out of. The autopilot is working against us, and every time we hit the fork in the road, it drags us down the same path…
Taking control
In order to break out of automatic patterns, we need to stop sitting in the passenger seat while our mind is trying to drag us down the same old path, we need to turn a passive process into an active process! Here are a few strategies that can help:
Label it: We can’t change something if we aren’t aware it’s happening. So a natural first step is to start getting into the practice of naming it when I’m finding myself stuck in an unwanted pattern, or getting dragged by my thoughts and feelings into behaviors that aren’t part of who I want to be. Once I catch that I’m in it, a powerful starting point to creating long term change can be something as simple as saying out loud: “Here’s the autopilot showing up again”. We’re not trying to judge ourselves or criticize the pattern, rather we just want to acknowledge that it’s happening. This alone won’t overhaul the problem, but it’s an important starting point for change: like building a foundation for a house, we have to start somewhere!
Normalize it: Many of us will fall into self-judgment or self-criticism when facing the patterns we’re stuck in, so it’s natural that if I acknowledge it, it won’t be long before a bunch of judgmental or critical thoughts might show up (e.g. “I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time on my phone again!”, “I’m never gonna fix my problems!”, “I’m a loser!” etc.). It’s no surprise that trying to change while beating myself up rarely helps me to take steps forward; in fact- it’s precisely these kind of thoughts that can grab me, make me feel worse, and start dragging me back towards scrolling on my phone! We need to try something different. A concrete strategy to help us with this one is normalizing what’s happening: simply saying to myself “looks like my autopilot grabbed me again, I remember learning from Jim’s cool blog post that this is a common thing that a lot of people struggle with!”. Notice the difference between this statement and those earlier examples of critical or judgmental thoughts! Which ones sound like they’re going to make it easier to help you move closer to who you want to be?
Take action: Now that we’ve identified the pattern and tried something to help us with the difficult thoughts that might’ve shown up, it might be a good time to try and take action. The idea here is to pick something that’s bringing me down that other path at that fork in the road. Maybe I need to go wash the dishes, maybe I need to get started on a project, or maybe I need to just reach out to my loved ones and connect. It’s at this point, when I start thinking about ideas for something positive I can do, that more thoughts are likely to show up to try and grab me and keep me scrolling on that phone. So I’ve got one more tool for helping us to get up and get going: A great tool for helping in moments like this is to ask the following question: is what I’m doing bringing me closer or pushing me farther away from who I want to be?. I encourage people to write this one down and keep it somewhere handy. Pull it out and take a look at it, and really try to give yourself a sincere answer to it.
One of the most important points I share when I offer suggestions is: none of this stuff is magic. If you’ve read this far you probably noticed some thoughts pop in your head that might be saying some pretty critical stuff about the ideas above! If that is happening right now then it might be a great time to practice what I wrote! Label it as the autopilot trying to drag you back to the same old pattern, normalize it as something that is common for everyone, and take action by doing something to help move yourself closer to who you want to be. Give it a shot, and treat it like an experiment.
If this stuff sounds like it might be useful and you’re interested in learning more, or even if it sounds confusing but you’re wanting to talk with me about it further, consider reaching out and booking a consult today using the button below.
Remember: if we don’t try anything new, nothing changes!
