5 ways to overcome resistance.

You make a new year resolution to better your life. Lets say it’s to do 30 minutes of physical exercise everyday.

You tell your friends about it. You put your resolution in writing. You actually make the change. It works. It feels good. You’re happy about it. Your life is better.

Then you backslide. Why? Are you some kind of slob who has no willpower? No.

Backsliding is a universal experience. Every one of us resists significant change, no matter whether it’s for the worse or for the better.

Our brain, body and behavior resists to any significant change. It snaps back when changed and it's a great thing. Think about it: if your body temperature moved up or down by 10 percent, you’d be in big trouble. So our body resists and brings the temperature back to normal.

This condition of equilibrium, this resistance to change, is called homeostasis. An example of homeostasis is air conditioning systems in our houses.

We want our lives to be comfortable. We want our paycheck to arrive on time. We need stability so we resist change. But, change still occurs. Individuals change. Families change. Entire cultures change. Even though the process might cause a certain amount of anxiety, pain and upset.

How do you deal with homeostasis? How do you make change for the better easier? And how do you make it last?

Here are 5 ways to deal with homeostasis or resistance:

1. Be aware of the way homeostasis works. This might be the most basic yet most important guideline of all.

   Expect resistance. When you feel resistance, understand why it is happening. Don't give into it and stop the change from happening. Rather, see these signals as an indication that your life is changing, just what you’ve wanted.

   You might also expect resistance from friends and family and co-workers.

   Say you want to quit your job, this is going on with me right now. You tell your family and friends. Do you think that your family will welcome the change? Maybe. In most cases, they will project their own fears onto you. They will give a million reasons why you should not quit your job?

2. Set systems. Follow a regular practice.

   Change becomes part of our life by consistent repetition of an action. By adding it our daily practice. Not so much for the sake of achieving an external goal but as simply for its own sake.

   That is where systems come in huge help.

   Systems are traps you lay in your life to build great habits. It makes building habits easier for you.

   If you want to build a reading habit. Keep a book next to your bed before sleeping instead of phone so when you wake up, you have an easy choice to pick up the book.

   It’s easier to overcome resistance if you’ve already established a regular practice.

3. Develop a support system.

   You can do it alone. But it helps a great deal to have other people with whom you can share the joys and perils of the change you’re making.

   The best support system would involve people who have gone through or are going through a similar process.

   People who can share their own stories of change, problems they faced and listen to yours. People who will brace you up when you start to backslide and encourage you when you don’t.

   And what if you don't find anyone on your particular path? At the least, you can let the people close to you know what you’re doing, and ask for their support. My partner, Miranda has immensely helped me to understand this. Don't hesitate to ask support.

4. Be willing to negotiate with your resistance to change.

   So what should you do when you run into resistance, when you don’t want to get out of the bed? Well, you don’t back off, and you don’t barge your way through.

   Negotiation is a way to successful long-term change from increasing your salary to transforming your life.

   Starting slow is a form of negotiation. Taking small steps is a form of negotiation. Making sure that you negotiate your way through the resistance.

5. Become a lifelong learner.

   We tend to forget that learning is much more than book learning. To learn is to change.

   Education whether it involves books, body or videos, is a process that changes the learner. It doesn’t have to end at college graduation or at age fifty or sixty or eighty.

   The best learning of all involves learning how to learn — that is, to change.

   The lifelong learner is one who has learned to deal with resistance, simply because they are doing it all the time.

Don't fight resistance. Be aware of it, understand resistance, understand how your brain works. Then use your understanding to build good habits and become the best version of yourself.

The choice is always yours, only the awareness is required.