The Process of Changing Habits and Blocks to Change

            The steps in healing our relationships are meant to bring about change in our personal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  Some people read about psychological issues with interest but change nothing.  Readers who don’t change may even feel better temporarily but the relationship and emotional problems will return and conflicts will go unresolved.

            One of the hallmarks of a mature, healthy relationship is for the parties to change themselves when the relationship stumbles.  Further, it is our individual responsibility to change our behaviors when our actions don’t bring us future satisfactions.  What is satisfying in life includes having a sense of purpose, having satisfying relationships and having something to look forward to.  We spend a lifetime pursuing these satisfiers and that pursuit means changing behaviors that don’t bring about or interfere with these goals.

            Change is difficult and it should be.  If we could change by whim or caprice our relationships would be destabilized.  We could not well enough predict the behaviors of our associates to develop a way of living together.  Yet, our ability to change is one of our greatest powers as a human beings.  When our habits work against us we can change them.  When those around us change we must change to cope with the new situation.

            Change will be aided first by understanding the process of change.  Many of the steps in change we will know intuitively or through experience.  Still, it helps to see them outlined.  When our change program that is blocked, it is useful to understand the ways in which the process of change is slowed or stopped. 

Step 1: Change begins with knowledge of some new "truth" about ourselves.  This truth usually has to do with a fault or a counterproductive tendency.  We are all bombarded by self-help books, talk show, ministers on Sunday morning, and psychologists ready to tell us what is wrong with us.  Most of the unpleasant bits of information that we receive are quickly forgotten.  I know I have heard a message from the pulpit and realized, "That's about me.  I ought to change that!"  By the next day I've forgotten about it, and my good intentions go unfulfilled.

Step 2: For the change process to proceed, we must notice the unwanted habit over time.  We must be aware that we are continuing to do something ineffective.  Counseling can help us to become aware of our problem behaviors on a regular basis.  Alternatively, we can elicit feedback from friends, coworkers, or a spouse.  When we heighten our awareness, our discomfort grows.  The discomfort prompts us to seek relief.

Step 3: Discomfort is motivational and will drive us in a healthy or unhealthy direction.  If we have thoughts like "Why do I have to change?  If my spouse would change I wouldn't have to," or "I can't stand this and I'm not ready to, or don't have time to, or can't change," we may find ourselves looking for an escape.  We could deny the problem, simply forget about it, or discount it as a small thing.  We could get drunk, have an affair, or blame someone else for our problem.  Escapes are easy to find and are easily implemented.  If we choose an escape, though, we will cycle back into the awareness of our problem and, through ineffective responses, back to the discomfort.  Some people make this cycle many times without changing.

Step 4a: A different motivational road is to use the discomfort to appraise our ineffective behavior. "I’m fed up, I've had enough," we might think, "and I'm going to change something."  When we are completely fed up with our old, ineffective behavior, we are ready to make a sincere, heartfelt, gut-wrenching commitment to change.  We may have made a partial commitment at step 1: "I really should do something about my behavior."  Still, it was mainly from the head and not from the heart.  A deeply felt commitment is necessary.  Yet even with this commitment, change will not be immediate.  The commitment here is driven by discomfort.

Step 4b: A second commitment may be drawn from a positive desire to change.  For this to work, we must feel trusting and safe in the environment where the change will take place.  The counseling relationship is such a place.

Step 5: Step 5 involves the struggle to overcome the habit.  In order to make headway we will have to persist despite inner resistance.  That's difficult, hence the struggle.  Feelings will always support the old habit, at least in the beginning.  Feelings guide us through life without our having to make conscious decisions about everything we do.  We don't have to decide to brush our teeth in the morning.  We just do it without thinking.  In changing a habit, we will have to act in a way that feels unnatural.  Our "guidance system" will be screaming at us, "You are doing it all wrong!" when we engage in new behavior.

Step 6: If we persist, knowing that our new decision is more correct than our old feelings, in time we will get conscious control over the old habit.  That is, we can substitute the new behavior every time if we think about it.  If we persist, a new habit will replace the old one and will become automatic.  The new habit is now natural and consistent with our feelings.

Identifying Roadblocks to Change

            Many times we block the process of change by denying something so as to create an excuse that will help us avoid the struggle.  Denial is a simple, and a frequent device to relieve the discomfort.

Denying Facts

            If we forget the problem behavior or deny that it ever existed, change will never occur.  We won't even realize that there is a need to change.  I once worked with a family that suffered from continual stress because the father needed to control everything.  Each family member confronted him in turn.  He would not hear what they were saying and attempted to locate the problem elsewhere.  All of us deny things that we can't stand to face.  In this particular case, he couldn't face giving up control.

Denying That the Problems Are Real

            When we don't want to change, maybe because change is hard or we may have to give up something that we don't want to lose, we minimize the problem.  "It's a small thing, or everyone does it," we might think.  A father had complained that his teenage son frequently lied, usually got caught, and was punished but continued to lie despite the consequences.  In the first session with the son he had only questions about how to handle his girlfriend.  I confronted the sixteen-year-old about his dishonesty.

            "Come on, Doc.  Are you always completely honest?" he asked.

            "No," I admitted.

            "See, everyone does it.  My father just makes it a crime!"  This teenager was fooling himself, because his lies and their consequences were destroying his family life--creating a difference between him and the more common dishonesty engaged in to escape minor conflict.

Denying That There Are Solutions

            When we are powerless to change something, it makes good sense to stop hoping to change it.  For example, take farmers and their dependence on rain.  They know that it is a big problem.  Yet they know that their actions will accomplish nothing--and so few of them engage in rain dancing.  Troublesome personal behaviors are not really like the weather, but some people treat them as if they were.  The problems addressed in therapy are changeable.

Denying Personal Ability

            "It can't be changed" is one objection.  Another one is "Other people may be able to change, but I can't."  I sometimes hear the complaint "What you don't understand, Doc, is that I'm a special case.  Because of who I am [personal background], my history [abuse], my ability [limitations], you can't expect me to change."  Special circumstances can lead to false beliefs such as: “I don’t deserve to get over my problems,” “It is not safe to completely get over this problem,” “It is impossible for me to change,” “I know that I won’t do what is necessary to get over this problem,” “Getting over my problems may not be good for me (or those I care about),” “I would feel personally deprived if I gave up my problem, ”I will lose my identity (not be myself) if I give up my problem.”

            The two greatest obstacles to change are minimizing the problem and under-estimation of personal ability.  In many cases these beliefs are not voiced.  Such attitudes must be brought out into the light in order to change them.  If we doubt our personal ability to alter the problem, the process of change will stop.  Secondly, if we don't know the significance of the facts, we will regard the problem as a small thing, and the process of change will stop.