Why Is Change So Darn Hard?

Why Is Change So Darn Hard?

I’m not a neuroscientist, but I am reading several different books and articles on neuroscience.  

Once I started studying how our brains work, the topic seemed to come up everywhere. For example, I was at the chiropractor, and it turns out she’s exploring the brain related to how we feel pain.

We think we have free will, but our brains might say otherwise.

I used to believe that if I was thinking about making a change and it felt hard or scary, that was a clear and obvious sign that it wasn’t the correct change. But here’s the deal. Your brain’s job is to protect you. Your brain knows what it likes, and it wants what it knows. Your brain prefers the familiar and what it deems to be safe. So when you think about change, your brain senses a threat, like a tiger attack. It sends signals that say DANGER AHEAD, don’t do that. Your body senses that signal, you back down, retreat, and go back to business as usual. Your brain is just doing its job, which works well in an imminent tiger attack or real physical danger. But it doesn’t work well when you want to make changes in your life. That’s why change is so darn hard.  

How do you push through and make changes anyway?

Small, consistent changes get significant results. For example, I’d like to exercise more each day. I start my day around 4:00 am, and by 4:00 pm, I’m ready to sit down, relax, read and watch the news. But what I should do is take a 10-minute walk or get on the elliptical while watching the news. I know I should do this, but if I hesitate for even 5-seconds – literally just 5-seconds, I’ll talk myself out of it. If I would just go when my reminder goes off, every day for several weeks, my brain wouldn’t fight with me on this change, and it would become a new habit.

Imagine how your brain fights even more significant changes like moving, changing jobs, training for a 5k, or getting out of a bad relationship. 

“We continue to do what we’ve always done because change is hard, and the fear of the unknown seems scarier than staying stuck.”

Change often happens when there’s a breaking point, and the pain of doing what we’ve always done feels worse than moving forward. Sometimes, just sharing with someone you trust about the desire to change is the first step to making it happen. With someone on your side, the change doesn’t seem quite so hard.

5-Simple Steps to Make Meaningful Changes:

  1. Recognize and accept that your brain is trying to protect you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t initiate changes.
  2. Significant change can happen with small, consistent (and less scary) steps.
  3. Often we’re compelled to change when doing nothing becomes more painful than doing something.
  4. Be sure you have an ally who will support your desire to make a change.
  5. Imagine how you’ll feel once you make the change happen. Visualize a future you once you’ve made this change. It can be life-changing. 
  6. Imagine Your Life’s Possibilities!

Need an ally to get started? I’m here to help. Schedule a complimentary sample session, and let’s get started today.

Barb Mason, Coach

I am a coach and jewelry designer. At UNSTUCK Coaching, I help middle-agers make changes toward the most fulfilling employment experience. As my own first coaching client, I know what it takes to get UNSTUCK.

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Birthing a Business: This UNSTUCK Story

Birthing a Business: This UNSTUCK Story

My UNSTUCK Business story is a harder journey to write about than Life, Career, and Wellness. I struggle to consistently recognize my achievements and accomplishments and find myself measuring success based on income, a sure-fire way to sabotage my efforts during a small business incubation period. A business takes time to grow, and patience is not my best virtue. This is just one example of how I’m continuing to evolve and develop my process, along with my clients. 

I never aspired to have my own business. My father, both a pharmacist and small-business owner, discouraged it. In 2008 I had a surgical procedure, leaving me with too much time and too little money to buy new things. That’s when I started my first business, bobbi kahn design jewelry. I love creating jewelry so much that sometimes I forget to breathe. When I sold my first piece off my body, the thrill was so great I was hooked. 

My husband, Herb, is my Chief Financial and Cheerleading Officer. He kept insisting that I had the talent to be a creative jewelry designer, but I didn’t have a business without a business plan. I ignored him for many years and ended up with a costly hobby that I funded through my HR job earnings.

Finally, I listened to Herb, and with a business plan in place, I suddenly had a real jewelry business. It was not difficult to understand revenue in and expenses out, but learning technology and social media was excruciating for me. It still is. 

When I anticipated my HR job might be eliminated in 2017, I invested in coursework to market my business online. I hoped to sell as much from my website as I did at in-person shows. That never happened, but I learned a ton, which has served me well in my second and third businesses. I also learned the importance of hiring people to do the things I hated doing. These professionals are better, faster and ultimately saved me time and money. I also learned that doing art fairs is physically exhausting.

In 2019, Herb bought two home inspection franchises and acquired two more small Farmer’s Insurance Agencies. With these new opportunities, I approached Herb, suggesting I become his Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for the new businesses. This led to an exciting professional partnership, complementing the personal one we had already cemented. In February 2020, after numerous training sessions and obtaining licensure, we were pumped to implement our business plan. Only weeks later, the nation shut down due to COVID-19. 

As is with anything in life, we expect obstacles, but it’s how we deal with them that predicts the outcome of our success. When COVID restrictions began to loosen and Herb and I could begin promoting our home inspection business again, things were great. We developed a healthy balance for managing our personal and professional lives together, which led to great success. It turns out we make a great team! But, as anticipated, we hit a few curveballs, and oh boy, what a learning process for us both.

We learned of several contract violations by the home-inspection business franchisor that were unresolvable, leading us to terminate our relationship with the company. Herb and I were devastated. We had invested so much time, energy, passion, and money into this opportunity and felt utterly betrayed by those we had come to trust. Yet, the entire experience brought us closer together as a couple and exponentially expanded our knowledge and experience as business owners.

At this same time, COVID led to the cancellation of all my jewelry shows for 2020. This left me with nothing productive to do for the foreseeable future. I quickly became a wicked online Canasta and Mah Jongg player, but that wasn’t quite as fulfilling as our home inspection business or my jewelry business.

I knew I had another career in me as I prefer to work more than almost anything else. For more than 20-years, I’d held onto a vision of becoming a Certified Coach at age 62 and transition from jewelry design and sales to coaching. With all shows canceled and our inspection business behind us, I enrolled in the Coach Training Alliance certification class and launched UNSTUCK Coaching, five years ahead of schedule.

I immediately hired people to do all of the necessary things I don’t enjoy or am not good at. My website, logo, graphics, and email tech were all outsourced right away. The attorney and accountant were already in place because of our other businesses. The stage was set for me to concentrate on being a career Coach. 

Right now, the nation is emerging out of the COVID pandemic as vaccines become more readily available. Gratefully, my art fair season is starting to shape up, and I expect to have several in-person events this year while still maintaining COVID safety precautions.

I’m excited to do both businesses because they fulfill me in different ways. I’ve never given birth to a human, though I’ve heard, if you knew how hard and painful it was, you might not ever do it the first time. Yet when that baby is born, you forget the pain and sometimes do it again. And again. Having a baby and raising a child is a joyful and painful experience most parents would never trade. I think birthing and growing my businesses is the same.

What do you want to grow? A business? A new career? A passion project? I’m here to help. Let’s jump on a call to set the stage for your UNSTUCK life.

Barb Mason, Coach

I am a coach and jewelry designer. At UNSTUCK Coaching, I help middle-agers make changes toward the most fulfilling employment experience. As my own first coaching client, I know what it takes to get UNSTUCK.

Unlock access to a FREE coaching session and downloadable journaling guide when you sign up for the UNSTUCK newsletter.

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Birthing a Business: This UNSTUCK Story

“I’m So Busy; I Don’t Have Time to Plan.”

In a recent meeting with a client, she lamented being so busy with paid client work; she didn’t have time to plan and strategize for future business growth. Her revenue is growing, but she hasn’t yet achieved her financial goals. She feels if she doesn’t take time to plan out her business, her business will start to run her. Does this sound familiar? Where does all that time go in a day? 

Many business owners are drawn to entrepreneurship because it gives them control over how they structure their days. My client prioritizes the early morning hours for working out, solitude and coffee. She takes a break mid-day to take a walk with her husband and grab lunch. Who wouldn’t want to do that? Amazing, right?!

My client indicated she needs time to plan and create new products and services while still meeting the needs of her current customer base. She questioned why she didn’t have enough time to get it all done. Was she wasting time on social media? Shopping online? Texting friends and family?

During our coaching session, we agreed there was a straightforward way to figure this out. She would track her time. For three days, she would use a simple paper and pencil tracking system to write down each task and how long it took. At our next meeting, when I asked what she’d learned, she said, “I’m a busy girl!”. And she knew she’d been more productive because she was tracking everything. Even so, she hoped she’d find out where she was wasting time and then use that found time to plan instead. That’s not what happened. She didn’t see the pockets of time she expected and needed to focus on her business. She also learned that some client work took longer than it should, given the client’s fee. We discussed that some companies plan to terminate 25% of their clients each year because they’re no longer profitable. 

This time-tracking exercise did not require any fancy software or app, which can sometimes be a deterrent if you have to figure out how they work. In just three days, my client gathered some valuable information:

  • She is quite busy
  • She’s not earning the revenue she should for some of the work she is doing
  • She’s more productive when she tracks time (and may keep that as an ongoing tool), 
  • If she doesn’t do something differently, she’s not going to run her business the way she wants to. 

So now what? I asked her: 

  • When do you do your best work?
  • When are you least productive? 

She shared that she’s most productive when she first gets to her desk in the morning and least productive on Friday afternoons. Initially, she was hoping to block off the entire day on Fridays for planning and strategy work. With her current client load, that’s not realistic, so instead, she’ll carve out an hour first thing in the morning for these growth activities. The rest of the day will be devoted to client work. That’s five solid hours she wasn’t designating before.

Are you struggling to find time for the things that matter to you in your business or job? Try this easy time-tracking exercise first to see where you’re spending your time. A few simple tools and a little bit of effort can reveal a lot and allow you to be more intentional in your planning efforts.

Barb Mason, Coach

I am a coach and jewelry designer. At UNSTUCK Coaching, I help middle-agers make changes toward the most fulfilling employment experience. As my own first coaching client, I know what it takes to get UNSTUCK.

Unlock access to a FREE coaching session and downloadable journaling guide when you sign up for the UNSTUCK newsletter.

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10-Ways to Get the Most From Working with a Coach

Check your attitude at the door. For starters. I used to be a smartypants who didn’t think she needed a business coach. But by the end of 2020, 10-months after officially launching my copywriting business, I began to think differently. Even though I’d previously owned two businesses, I found myself overwhelmed with ALL the things and struggling to find focus. So when asked, “do you think coaching might help?” I thought, “it can’t hurt” and I signed up for six months of coaching. Five months later I have a whole new perspective and appreciation for the process. Below I’ve shared my top 10 nuggets of advice to get the most out of your coaching experience:

  1. Come with an open mind – Like any program, educational opportunity, or even therapy, showing up with an open mind is super important. After all, you’re there because you want to change something. Right? If you show up with an open mind, you’re going to be open to someone else’s point of view, and possibly see things through a fresh set of eyes.
  1. Show up with an open heart – This is similar to number one above but has more to do with being willing to receive feedback and being open to making a connection with your coach. One thing that I will point out here is that a successful client/coach relationship needs chemistry, just like other relationships. Not every match is a good fit, so before you sign up, be sure you feel good about your coach, beyond their credentials and experience.
  1. Listen – Hearing and listening are not the same things, obviously. When it’s your turn to listen, don’t just sit there and think about what you just said, or the next thing your going to say, or what you’re going to have for dinner. Be still, look at your coach while she’s talking, and soak in what she has to say.
  1. Be vulnerable – You have to be willing to say the hard things. That’s the real meat of the coaching process. If you sugarcoat or try to wrap everything up in a beautiful package with a bright red bow, I can almost guarantee you’ll get nowhere. This is one of the reasons why the client/coach relationship is so important. When you feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable, that’s when the real work begins.
  1. Forget everything you know – Not everything you know, but everything you think you know about coaching. These are credentialed professionals with many hours of training and experience. So when you go in with an open mind (see number one) this also means to let go of any preconceived notions about what a coach or session “should” be. Your journey to success is unique.
  1. Be ready and willing to take action – You can accomplish a lot in six months if you’re committed to the process and ready to take action. On the other hand, you can also waste six months and be exactly where you were when you started. So from day one, be committed to taking the necessary steps to achieve your objectives. 
  1. Be coachable – Keep an open mind (see number one), and be willing to try the things your coach suggests. One of the worst things you can say is “oh I tried that and it didn’t work for me”. Maybe so. But did you really try it? And to what extent? Before dismissing what your coach has to say, listen, absorb and be open and willing to try again.
  1. Be honest – These are YOUR sessions and it’s your investment. So don’t waste your time or money, or your coach’s time by being misleading. This one seems to be obvious, but I think it’s worth adding to the list. If you struggle to be vulnerable, and honest why bother? Your time will be wasted.
  1. Don’t be afraid to give yourself deadlines – It’s very likely that during your sessions you’ll be asked to set a deadline for an action step. This can feel scary because a deadline means that now it’s a real thing, and you’ve said it out loud. You might not meet every deadline, but I can promise you that without a deadline you’ll struggle to make progress.
  1. Hold yourself accountable – Take your deadlines seriously, if you want to make measurable progress. These sessions are for you, not your coach, who is just there to be your guide. You’re the one who has to take action, if you want to achieve your goals.

When you’re looking to hire a coach, do your due diligence. If someone sounds promising, and they offer a sample or complimentary session, do it! Afterward, if you decide they’re not the right fit, that’s OK, just let them know. Beyond their experience, credentials, and testimonials, you have to trust your gut, which is subjective. So take your time. And when you’ve decided on the right coach for you, remember these steps if you want to get the most out of your coaching experience.

Toby Myles is a copywriter and owner of Toby Myles Copywriting where she helps women-owned businesses grow and earn more money through clear and consistent messaging. Grab Toby’s FREE Guide: 52-Weeks of Blog Content in 4-Easy Steps. It’s jam-packed with simple, actionable steps to create a year’s worth of blog content. 

Toby is a client at Unstuck Coaching, and this blog is inspired by her personal experience.

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Get An Accountability Partner and Get UNSTUCK

New clients excite me. Truthfully, all clients excite me, but I love the early stages of discovery, as a new client relationship unfolds. It’s at the beginning that I can start to piece together the purest, most unbiased, objective picture of my clients before we become familiar with one another. I’m working with a new client now, and as often happens, she sees herself very differently than I do. 

What I see: A completely successful entrepreneur who can run two businesses, create her product, raise two children and be a great wife. She knows what she needs to do to get stuff done and she knows how to prioritize the work. 

What she sees: Despite her business and personal success, she feels that sometimes, her creative side takes over her “get-it-done” side.  She gets lost in time. It’s a blessing and also her curse.

In our last coaching session, she admitted she got more done this week than she would have otherwise. Curious as to what changed, I asked what did she do differently? She explained, knowing she’d agreed to be accountable to me, for doing what she committed to, she stayed more focused on driving sales for her business.  

This accountability is often overlooked, and I got to thinking about my accountability partners. If my accountability partner and I are working towards similar goals, we seem to get much more accomplished. So, I have several, depending on the goal: 

  • I have an accountability partner for weight management and healthy eating.
  • I have another accountability partner for growing our businesses.

Though they are two different people, what these partnerships have in common is that we set goals and report to each other every week (at least once a week, usually more) on how we’re doing. We’re committed to achieving our individual goals and helping each other do the same. 

Many people don’t have someone who will hold them accountable. Sometimes, with the best of intentions, and to be supportive, our friends and family members let us slide or tell us we can try again tomorrow. Instead, what we need is for them to support us in setting our goals, and taking the steps necessary to succeed. 

I work out with a personal trainer twice a week.  She is another accountability partner but I pay her. Why? Because she pushes me harder to accomplish my goals than I would if I did it alone. I know all the right things I’m supposed to be doing, but I don’t do them. Believe me, I’ve tried. I get tired. I get distracted. I say I’ll work harder tomorrow. And then I don’t. I would much rather use the money I invest in my personal trainer for something else. And if I’d lift weights on my own I could use that money some other way. But I don’t, and I know it’s an important part of my health and wellness journey. So I pay her, and I’m okay with that. 

Do you have an accountability partner? Do you feel yourself falling short of your goals, or setting the same goals over and over without success? I can be your accountability partner to help you set realistic, achievable goals and CRUSH them. Picture your life one year from now if you take that first step today. Get Unstuck and Imagine Your Life’s Possibilities.

“Barb’s ability to keep me accountable and stay focused on my goals, is invaluable. She easily spots my own mental blocks, and doesn’t allow me to gloss over them. Barb provides a safe space to share and be vulnerable, both of which have been key to my progress and success!” -Toby Myles

Set Small Goals and Get UNSTUCK

A few weeks ago a friend confided that they were feeling isolated, under-exercised, scared about the future, their career and how the pandemic would affect their kids in the long run. Like many, my friend is working remotely, with a home office on the third floor. Pre-pandemic, when working from home only happened occasionally, my friend’s home office was the dining room table. “Once relegated to the upstairs home office, it was hard to come down”, my friend confided. It was far from everything going on in the house, and when work life got busy, my friend stayed upstairs, for hours.  Even with a daily goal of taking a stretch or a short walk, my friend, who is quite healthy, just couldn’t get it done. Fearing that “sitting is the new smoking” all my friend wanted was to come down the stairs, open the front door and go to the end of a very short block. And still, they couldn’t get it done. This feeling of failure, as defined by my friend, contributed to their malaise. My friend added that they had created a very functional stand up desk, and all they had to do was move the laptop from their seated position to the standing position. And still, it wasn’t happening.

I asked, why haven’t you set a small goal to just stand up, every hour? Further, I said, you are concerned that once you get up to your third floor office it’s hard to come down, right?  And you’ve shared that you NEED to move more because if you don’t, you’ll literally stay seated for many hours at a time. I reminded my friend, “you told me you’re super busy at work right now, and it’s not practical to take a break every hour, yet you want to find a way not to sit so long.  Why don’t you just stand up?” I asked.

They said “oh, you mean make a small goal?” Lightbulb moment. 

I pointed out, if it’s such a small goal why don’t you do it? To me it sounded like a great start and easily achievable. Standing up every hour means a change in perspective, a new effort, stopping what you are doing for a moment and then getting started again. So I didn’t really consider it a small goal.

This got me thinking. Imagine the possibilities if you did just this one thing. Stand up! You’ll feel better because you are moving your body. You’ll be energized by the motion and you’ll likely find time to add larger goals like walking to the corner once a day. Eventually you’ll find yourself taking a break mid-day for a brisk walk. The world won’t come to a screeching halt, and work will still be there when you come back. Give it a try!