The status quo seems to be a very powerful thing. It's part of human nature to want to grow and improve and to seek after more. I've been noticing, however, that when people try to grow and change, many times they end up falling back to where they were.
I'd bet this has happened to just about everybody on the planet. You have a habit you'd like to break or create, you start practicing your modified behavior, and in a short amount of time, you realize you're back to old habits and your attempt at behavioral modification has completely failed. I know it's happened to me many many times. It frustrates me to think about how many times it's happened. I tried to keep a budget once or twice (or more...), and it works great for a month or two, then the weekly budget meetings get bumped once or twice, then I'm behind and it's harder to catch up, then... *sigh* my good intentions evaporate once again. Back to the status quo.
I know of a family which was living in New Mexico and decided it was time to make a change and come up to Cedar City, closer to family. They prayed, considered, and sold their house, packed up the truck and rented an apartment in Cedar. He ended up working the exact same job here as in New Mexico, moved from one store to another, they moved to Hurricane for the same kind of job, and a couple of days ago I heard that they were back in New Mexico. Same town, same job. The only thing different is that they are now living with his parents because they don't have a house. Status quo.
I know of another person (and these are people I know and admire, I'm not trying to point out any kind of uncommon weakness) who with grand intentions left his job to spend more time at home with family and earn the family living through investments. That lasted about 6 months, and now he's back at the same job he left. Status quo.
Why does this happen? I don't say that these families made the wrong decision to revert to the way things were, or that the decision to change in the first place was wrong, and surely there were individual factors in all of the cases I mentioned, and the economic climate had a big part in the decisions of both the families I mentioned, but when we see trends, we look for common factors and try to identify ways of getting around these common problems.
Why is it so hard to make a change?
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Good question.
ReplyDeleteIf we could sell the cure, we could make more money than Bill Gates. Change is difficult.
In some cases, how many I don't know, the people may realize that they don't need what they thought they needed. Paul says he learned to be content with whatever state he was in (Phil 4:11). However, not all situations are ones where we reject what we think we need. Possessions? Do we really need that new toy? No, not really.
Now, contentment is great, but we also must progress. Perhaps people revert because they lack the diligence or consistency. Lehi's family traveled by the Liahona, which required diligence, heed, and faith. However, when they forgot to do that, they didn't progress. Maybe they wandered in circles too.
ALMA 37:
38 And now, my son, I have somewhat to say concerning the thing which our fathers call a ball, or director—or our fathers called it aLiahona, which is, being interpreted, a compass; and the Lord prepared it.
39 And behold, there cannot any man work after the manner of so curious a workmanship. And behold, it was prepared to show unto our fathers the course which they should travel in the wilderness.
40 And it did work for them according to their afaith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day.
41 Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by asmall means it did show unto them marvelous works. They were bslothful, and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey;
I know I revert when I am not doing what I should. The changing path is hard, especially because it requires that consistency. In Alma 32, Alma says that in order to grow the plant and obtain the food, you have to be diligent. We can grow some things, but if we do not continue, we will have very little. It just may be one of those Christlike attributes we have to learn. It is a vital one because it applies to all the other ones.
Christ had charity, he had patience, he communed with his Father, he gained the Spirit, he taught. NOW....he had to be diligent in all those things. He had to do them more than once. Whoa. That seems to be an overwhelming Christlike attribute.
Another reason we fall back to "status quo" is because we go through a cycle: Excited about change - take action and devote our time, thoughts, and energy - begin momentum and start seeing change - get excited because of progress - diminish devotion of time, thoughts, and energy towards the change - lose momentum - get stressed out about it.
ReplyDeleteThey say it takes 21 days of daily discipline to form a habit. The funny thing about us however, is that we take our hand off the rod when we feel we're making progress; we get comfortable and stop to enjoy the scenery. The difference between the 5% of business owners that are successful after 10 years and the 95% who go out of business is that they don't slow down no matter what. The keep their blinders on and don't give into the idea that they can take it slower now.
It's natural for us to seek balance subconciously. We we are doing above average work, our thermostat kicks in saying that maybe we can relax a little and reward ourselves for doing such great work. Then, losing momentum, we don't "get it together" again until things are already going south.
It stinks. But after going through this cycle several times, you pick up on ways to improve the next time. You take action, you fail, you evaluate. Action, fail, evaluate. Action, fail harder, evaluate, LEARN! Action, persist, succeed!