4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change


4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change. Graphic

The 4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change


[1] Misguided Beliefs And The BIG Lie

This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important.

The "self-help industry" generates $ USD billons per year, and many of us buy books and attend courses on how to improve ourselves.

Yet most of the time we don’t change.

We can’t change - it's why we get stuck.

We have unconscious (and thus hidden) resistance. And yet we believe that if we keep on trying we can somehow gain control of our lives.

Then we deal with our resistance and still life is hard and things don’t always improve – or move in the directions we think that we want.

We are told by the experts that if we take massive action, practise positive thinking, or learn this or that skill we can somehow create or co-create the future we desire.

There is a prevalent belief circulating the western world in general and the US in particular that our thoughts create our total experience and that ultimately we are responsible for everything that happens to us.

This belief postulates that at some deeper level - or maybe in a previous existence or pre-existent state - we have chosen these things that happen to us.

There are the science of the mind teachings, positive thinking teachings, and more recently the law of attraction teachings. All of these beliefs are so often presented as certainties and yet they just become further reasons why we get stuck.

All of my lived and observed life experience has shown me that:



    How we think does very largely affect how we experience and interpret what happens to us.

    How we think does not create everything that happens to us.



I say this with conviction because the evidence does not support the "I can create any future I want" belief and its another reason why we get stuck.

Life is more complex than we can comprehend, and life is also interconnected and interdependent  in ways that we do not conventionally fully appreciate.

Our lives are woven together in ways and for reasons that we often cannot see, and yet, each of us is a thread in another person’s tapestry. It is probable that we live in a participatory universe.

There are many people who have been inordinately commercially successful and/or personally successful in their relationships and family life – or who have enjoyed remarkably good health - and there is nothing to suggest that their success is entirely attributable to how they think.

There are many people who think good positive uplifting and empowering thoughts and they are not successful or blessed in these areas.

What we can say with certainty and conviction is that:

  • Life is far more complex, random and chaotic than we realise or, for many of us, are prepared to accept.
  • Cause and effect is often neither obvious or even discernible.
  • We make inferences and assumptions and hold beliefs that are irrational or lack foundation.
  • We are deluded by our cognitive biases.
  • Our brains are hardwired to the environment of our Paleolithic ancestors and have neither evolved or adapted for life in the modern world.



    I call this "the big lie" because in my experience the lie is in the overstatement of a partial truth and in the misdirection that anything can be resolved anywhere "if I put my mind to it".

    This is a gross deception and it leads so many people to keep on striving to find "it""the missing piece of the jigsaw" and thus to stay in a perpetual state of seeking and aspiration and desire for something "out there" in the future that will "make me feel happy, fulfilled and complete".




Yes how we think matters – but far less than we believe it does.

It matters to the extent that we are as well equipped as possible to cope with what is happening to us now and, so often, that which is imposed upon us. But it does not create very much of what happens to us.






[2] Most Of What We Think Is Outside Of Our Conscious Awareness

Most Of What We Think Is Outside Of Our Conscious Awareness. Graphic

Of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck this one is difficult because we can't see it.

Change comes from within. As Carl Jung said:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

And a lot of that thinking that is going on outside of our conscious awareness is deeply resistant to our conscious efforts to change.

So even though how we think matters far less than we think it does, and even though how we think has far less effect on the circumstances of our live than we are often taught, even our feeble attempts to change our attitudes and behaviours towards what we experience are largely blocked by hidden unconscious resistance to personal change.



    We like to think – and are often led to believe – that we are masters of our destiny.

    Yet that is just not true, as the vast majority of what we think is outside of our conscious awareness.








[3] We Can’t Let Go And Trust


We Can’t Let Go And Trust. Graphic


And as if all that isn’t bad enough – even when we are able accept the limitations of the power of our thoughts and even when we are able to identify and deal with our inner resistance to personal change we run into another of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck.

We eventually come to the realisation that we just can’t sort it out ourselves – it is beyond our capacity to deal with – we reach the limits of our thinking minds.

We reach the point where we have to let go and trust…. something that is beyond us – and it this realisation that is very, very threatening and scary because it means relinquishing control – letting go of the notion that "I am in control" – eventually to the point of letting go of the whole notion of who “I” is.

And underlying this problem is an even bigger deception or lie... and that is the lie that "I" am in control of anything.

And yet it is in letting go and trusting… that we find the only path to real and permanent personal change and transformation.

[And just as a footnote: this is what lies at the root of the idea of the Christian "way of the cross" and "death to self", the Buddhist "dropping of the self" and "realisation of emptiness" and the Islamic jihad in the sense of a personal and internal "holy war" to achieve submission to "righteous living", and similar expressions in other faith traditions.]



    Most of us would rather die (and usually do) before we are willing and able to surrender – to let go of control of - our lives.








[4] We Can’t Stop Thinking


We Can’t Stop Thinking. Graphic


This last of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is because of the we are so identified with the thought stream and fail to realising that we are not our thoughts.

A big part of letting go – even just for a while – and escaping the tyranny of our thoughts is to learn how to stop thinking.

Imagine being able to stop thinking at will, on demand, at any time and in any place.

Imagine being able to create a space in your head where there are no thoughts and no emotions... just space and awareness of the sounds and smells and visual images around you...awareness of the sensation of  your breath entering and leaving your body.

So, what is it like to be able to stop thinking?

The best way I can describe it is to say that it's like having your own personal safe room in your head where you can take refuge from your thoughts. When I am in my safe room in my head it is as though I am in a place where there are no thoughts and no emotional reactions.

Well strictly speaking I am aware of a limited amount of distant "white noise" coming from thoughts and emotions but this is very peripheral to the core of where I am. So I guess to be completely accurate this means that I stop 80% of all thought and emotional reactions more or less on demand.

Here are 3 benefits of learning how to stop thinking:

  1. It provides you with a sanctuary and refuge from the tyranny of your thinking mind.
  2. This break from your thinking mind gives you an opportunity to recharge your mental, emotional and spiritual batteries.
  3. It really does allow new ideas and fresh insights to emerge. you will find that the space that arises between the thoughts in your thinking mind is a very fertile and creative space.



    Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts.

    They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past."

    In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought.

    It is the very essence of who you are.








Next Article: The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!

Return from "4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck" to: How To Change Your Life


Contact Me




English Chinese (Traditional) Russian French German Italian Spanish Vietnamese



LATEST ARTICLES

  1. The Balanced Brain - The Ultimate Route To Personal Transformation

    How To Experience The Benefits Of A Balanced Brain. Underpinning all of the belief systems and practices that offer routes to personal change, transformation and spiritual growth is the balanced brain…

    Read More

  2. How To Make Better Decisions - By Avoiding The Narrative Trap

    To Understand The Truth We Have To See The Whole Picture. One of the best ways to make better decisions is to have a deeper understanding of the many things that might stop that happening. To understa…

    Read More

  3. The Greatest Love - The Most Important Relationship You Will Ever Have

    Yet Most Will Never Know It Everyone of us has a place, in our hearts there's a space, that is home to the greatest love of all. This love transcends everything we think we know about the world of for…

    Read More

  4. Everything Is Connected And Why You Don't Feel It

    ...And Why It Matters As human beings we are skating on very thin ice with our sense of self and certainty about "how things are" and what we like to think of as reality:

    - What if everything we think…

    Read More

  5. Who Is In Charge Of Your Brain?

    How Not To Be Stupid. Who is in charge of your brain? This is not a silly questions. It matters because the outcomes that you experience in your life are determined by how you respond to the events th…

    Read More

  6. How To Be A Winner On A Very Large Scale

    The Incredible Benefits Of Selective Attention. This is not a typical article about how to be a winner. We are not going to talk about goal setting, the importance of habits, the power of focus and al…

    Read More

  7. The Metagame Approach To Life

    How To Achieve Your Biggest Objectives. The metagame approach to life is all about winning and achieving your biggest objectives by: - Understanding the bigger picture
    - Being better by doing things d…

    Read More

  8. Shantideva - The Way Of The Bodhisattva

    Walking The Path Of Compassion. Shantideva the 8th century Indian Buddhist sage is famous for his treatise "The Way of the Bodhisattva" delivered as an extended teaching to the monks of Nalanda monast…

    Read More

  9. Reframing History - Deconstruction And Discussion Not Destruction

    History is always about context, not imposing our own moral values on the past. For those of us fortunate enough to live within western democracies, we are living in an age where a vociferous and into…

    Read More

  10. Tao Te Ching - Connecting To Your True Source Of Power.

    How To Be Lived By The Tao. The Tao Te Ching is one of those books that many people read, few understand, and even fewer put into practice. The only way to know the Tao is to experience it, and it is…

    Read More

  11. How Things Really Are - The Inbuilt Design Flaws

    Chaos, Disorder And Decay Is The Natural Order Of Things. Nobody has the perfect life. We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health…

    Read More

  12. Intuition Or Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Crawling Here?

    How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? Several months ago I was having a drink…

    Read More

  13. What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?

    How the truth and nothing but the truth is often not the whole truth. My great aunty Flo broke her arm and died. It is true that she broke her arm in 1923. It is also true that she died in 1949. But t…

    Read More

  14. Duality And Life Beyond Your Thinking Mind

    Duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuses on the limitations of time, foreground and background, duality and "stuckness". The first aspect of duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuse…

    Read More

  15. The Conscious Mind Is Limited - Be Aware And Be Prepared

    Being aware is the first stage of being prepared. The conscious mind is limited in so many ways. There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as conscious thought and that it is represen…

    Read More

  16. Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here's Why You Think The Way You Do

    The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and rel…

    Read More

  17. The Failure Of Cancel Culture - Suppression Not Engagement

    Why we need to wear our beliefs lightly and develop negative capability. Throughout history people have campaigned to fight beliefs, ideologies, and injustices that they perceived to be oppressive, di…

    Read More

  18. 4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change

    Most People Spend Their Entire Life Imprisoned Within The Confines Of Their Own Thoughts. This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important. The "self-help industry…

    Read More

  19. How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?

    We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…

    Read More

  20. The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!

    Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…

    Read More

  21. Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent

    This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call! Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"

    Read More

  22. The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness

    How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…

    Read More

  23. How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now

    So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…

    Read More

  24. Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks

    Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…

    Read More

  25. How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips

    The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…

    Read More

  26. Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes

    Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…

    Read More

  27. Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life

    Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…

    Read More

  28. Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line

    In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…

    Read More

  29. The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!

    To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…

    Read More

  30. The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin

    Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…

    Read More



Get new posts by email:









Zen-Tools.Net





Support This Site