5 Common Obstacles to a Life of Wonderful Change, and How to Get Around Them

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.”
Arnold Bennett

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Anais Nin

Why are you reading this blog?

Probably because you want to make a positive change in your life. Perhaps you want to improve your social skills, simplify how you work or change your attitude and how you think.

Now this is great. But it is seldom that easy. There may be obstacles outside of you. There are almost certainly obstacles inside of you.

In this article I’ll explore some of those common obstacles that can make change so hard and how to get around them.

You don’t want to change.

Maybe you think you want to change something. But is it really your wish? Or is it the wish of your parents, boss, partner, friends or society?

If you don’t really want to make the change deep down then it will be very hard to go the distance. Yes, you can begin but if there is no inner drive to do it then you will lose motivation easily and feel like giving up all the time after a while.

What to do about it: Sit down and really think about whose goals you are working towards. If they are not yours then think about what you can do to stop working on them and spend more time on your own consciously chosen goals instead.

If you still have to go on with may have started as someone else’s goal – perhaps your boss has told you to do something and you can’t just ditch that if you want to keep your job – then find your own reasons for working on that goal. Brainstorm and write them all down. Review that paper and make the goal into more of your goal and know why you are working towards it for you own sake.

Your environment is holding you back.

If you are for example trying to lose weight then it will be a lot harder if the people around you are eating junk food every day. If you are trying to think more positively then it will be a lot harder if you hang out with negative people all the time and watch the news and negative and fear-inducing TV-shows too much.

What to do about it: Change your environment in a ways that will support you. That’s doesn’t mean that you have to take drastic measures like never talking to some friend or family member again to cultivate a more positive attitude.

It may just mean that you cut down on seeing the most negative people/TV-shows etc. that much and replace that with more time with positive people and positive media consumption. By doing that the process will be so much easier.

If you are trying to lose weight then find people with similar goals that you can spend some time with each week. Even if it’s just via an online forum of some sort.

Carve out some time and a space for yourself with people and motivational and educational information – books, blogs, magazines etc – that will support you as you move towards your goal. Also, by involving more people and/or for example signing up for courses somewhere you will feel commitment to people you like and a bit of positive social pressure to actually go there when you are supposed to instead of slacking off on the sofa.

One common problem with the social environment is that you perhaps fear what people may think if you make change. Well, in my experience people are seldom as harsh as you think they will be. They are most often supportive or simply not that interested/neutral to you making changes.
People are most often focused on their own goals and challenges in life. Or what other people may think of them. You are not the center of the universe.

You feel like giving up after one or three failures.

When you are really young then you probably don’t build failure up to be this huge thing. You learn to walk, fall down and ding your head and get up again. The same goes for learning to ride your bike.

But through influence from school and society failure becomes this increasingly more frightening thing. Sure, as you get older the stakes become higher and you can lose more if you fail. But I do think people often exaggerate the effects failure will have simply because they feel frightened.

What to do about it: Most of the time the sky will not fall if you fail. People will not mock you. Life just goes on. But you have to do things to gain this understanding. You will not get it just by reading these words and all the other things by people who have said the same thing for centuries.

Your mind has to experience failure – or the possibility of it – over and over to make the fear of failure to lot smaller. That has at least been my experience.

You may however find motivation in that failure teaches you things books/blogs cannot. By changing your perspective to a more curious one and seeing failure more as a learning experience than something to fear it becomes easier to handle.

You don’t feel enough pain yet.

Why do people change? Oftentimes I think they have simply had enough. The pain of staying as you are becomes too big and you seriously start looking for a positive way forward.

What to do about it: Besides waiting until the problem becomes pretty much unbearable you can try to see your future self vividly in your mind.

Ask yourself: What will this lead to in 5 and 10 years? Where am I going?

Towards massive debt, a heart attack, serious illness and severe restrictions in your future? Do you want go to that place where it is very likely that you will wind up if you don’t make a change? Then see your future self where you have made the positive change. What positive and awesome things has it brought you in 5 years and in 10 years? See it all in your mind. And remind yourself of the positive and negative consequences by writing them down and reviewing them whenever you feel like quitting and going back to your old ways.

Vividly seeing the probably very real future consequences of not changing can be that nudge you need to get serious about improving something in your life.

You don’t know how to practically make the change.

This is a common obstacle. Fortunately, nowadays we have the Internet so it’s a lot easier to find practical solutions to the problems many people have faced before you.

What to do about it: Ask yourself what have other people before you or around you have done to improve their situation?

Talk to people who have made the change you want to make (lose weight, quit smoking, improve the social life etc.). Or if you can’t find anyone, read the top rated books on Amazon.com on that topic or read blog articles.

But make sure that you take advice from someone who has actually been in your shoes and gone where you want to go. Find a way that suits you. It may not be the first method or system you try. So be patient. Keep moving forward towards the things you want most in your life.

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About the Author

Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog. Click here to learn more…

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Small change require an additional effort, however big change requires a different mindset altogether.

  • chandana

    motivational …. but here i arise a question how many people put the things pratically in their life

  • Good point! I agree with both, Marwan and chanana.
    I guess this brings us back to Henrik’s story about the bath (love it!) – and having a real motivation to change, as well as support. Otherwise, as you say, chandana, how many of us do make practical changes?
    Shall we have a count? ;-)

  • Change is really hard at first, but I’ve found that it usually leads to positive consequences.