What if the real reason you can’t change is invisible to you?
Is there something you’d love to change about yourself – a behaviour, a recurring reaction, something you do that you know isn’t serving you in your work or your life?
And have you also had a really hard time changing it? You might have wanted to change this for the majority of your life, but you still haven’t figured out how.
In my work over the last ten years supporting business owners, leaders and athletes through change, the story is often the same. They come to me with this thing they want to change, completely frustrated that they haven’t been able to get past it. The same problem keeps showing up in their life and they’re left dumbfounded, wondering why.
They find themselves in a familiar loop of feelings and reactions – all linked to suffering in some way.
This suffering can look like:
- Feelings of failure
- Feeling not good enough
- Thinking you’re letting people down
- Hiding your true thoughts and self
- Putting aside your own needs and wants
- Living in constant fear that others will discover your faults
- Workaholism and burnout
Here are some thoughts shared with me by senior, experienced leaders:
“To get ahead you have to be correct and not make mistakes. Or else you will demolish your credibility.”
“Unless I’m productive, I’m not of value.”
“If I don’t do it, it won’t get done properly.”
“When things are perfect, then I’m valued and feel good enough.”
“I don’t want to disappoint others.”
The list goes on – but there’s always a theme underneath these thoughts, and it revolves around worthiness and value. Brené Brown calls it the hustle we all have to prove our worthiness. And we all have one.
There’s a scientific and psychological explanation for it, and it starts with how we grow up and the strategies we develop to get our needs met as kids.
These thoughts are also known as limiting beliefs – and they matter enormously when it comes to change. They are the invisible force underneath the behaviour or reaction you haven’t been able to shift.
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey call it our immunity to change – a psychological framework that explains why smart, motivated people often struggle to achieve their goals. It proposes that a failure to change isn’t a lack of willpower, but the result of an invisible, protective “immune system” that safeguards our deepest, hidden fears.
This is the space I work in every day with my clients – helping them make the invisible visible.
The real reason we can’t change isn’t because we’re incapable. It’s because the reasons are hidden from us. And until we make them visible, we can’t change the thoughts driving our behaviours. Until we make them visible, we will stay exactly where we are and keep experiencing the same outcomes.
The way we make them visible is by looking under the hood – going inside ourselves, being honest, and daring to admit what we truly think and feel.
“Understanding yourself is a far more efficient path than fixing yourself.” — Joe Hudson
But this is hard. It’s confronting. When we admit those thoughts to ourselves – and to others – it brings up shame, embarrassment, and fear of judgment or rejection. It’s so much easier to avoid that.
But those who are brave and committed to change venture in anyway. They’ve weighed the odds. They trust that the discomfort of facing themselves is worth it in order to get the change they so badly want. And they learn afterwards that it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be. More importantly, they learn that it was the required path. They learn that they have the power to change their situation, their outcomes – and that they have real agency in their lives.
And that’s a powerful thing.
Real change, real growth – it takes looking at ourselves. Our whole selves. Uncovering what’s keeping us stuck or holding us back.
What we find isn’t easy or light.
What we find are the beliefs, assumptions and fears that make up our current mindset – things we constructed as survival strategies to get our needs met. But what got us here won’t get us there. Those beliefs served a purpose once. Now, they keep us limited.
So changing the mindset is where the work begins. The rugged, uncomfortable, often painful work of shifting how we see ourselves – so that we can feel more free and empowered in our lives.
This stuff is rarely shared publicly. It’s not for algorithms. It’s deeply personal and vulnerable.
And it’s worth acknowledging.
So if this is you – if you’re out there doing the deep, rugged, uncomfortable work of personal growth – keep going. Don’t stop because it’s hard. This work will set you free. You just need to stay in it long enough, and be supported by the right people.
If you’re ready to make the invisible visible and finally move through what’s been holding you back, this is exactly the work I do with my clients. I work with business owners, leaders and athletes who are done going around the same loop – and are ready for something different. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to explore what that could look like for you.