Ep. 16 - What To Do When You're The One Not Getting On Board
Here's something nobody really talks about when it comes to changing how you work: the person most likely to resist the change is you.
Not in a dramatic, digging-your-heels-in kind of way. More in a quiet, Tuesday-afternoon, “I’ll just do it the old way because it’s quicker” kind of way. You know the new approach makes sense. You decided to do it. And then you… don’t. Or you do it once, and then life gets busy, and the old habit just kind of … slides back in.
Deeply frustrating and also incredibly common. Plus, it’s almost never a sign that something is wrong with you.
Why your own habits are harder to shift than you’d expect
When you’re running a business on your own, everything runs through you. The old way of doing things isn’t just a habit, it’s the entire infrastructure. It’s fast. It’s automatic. It’s what your hands do while your brain is thinking about something else entirely.
The new way requires actual thought, or at least for now. Then when your plate is full and your energy isn’t, actual thought is a resource you don’t always have going spare. So the old way wins by default, because it costs less in the moment.
Annoying AF, but that’s just how brains work. The new way hasn’t become automatic yet, and until it does, it will always feel slightly more effort than the shortcut you’ve been using for years.
What self-resistance actually looks like in practice
It rarely announces itself. It tends to look like:
Setting up a better way to handle enquiries, and then manually sending the link anyway because someone messaged you directly and it was just easier.
Opening the new tool, thinking “I’ll do this properly tomorrow”, and then doing it the old way today.
Having a clear plan for how to manage your week, and then just opening your inbox and responding to whatever’s at the top because that’s where the urgency lives.
Telling yourself you’ll properly sort things out once things calm down.
Sound familiar? Yeah. Most of us have done all of these, sometimes in the same day. Naming no names but yeah I can point to myself in this one.
The ‘once things calm down’ trap
This one deserves its own section because it’s so convincing. The timing always feels wrong. You’re too busy right now. You’ve got a big project on. Things will be better placed next month. And next month, there’s a different reason that feels just as important.
The truth is, things don’t calm down on their own. The busy creates the chaos, and the chaos creates the busy. The only way out of the loop is to change something while you’re in it, not after it.
There will never be a perfect moment. There will only be the moment you decide this matters enough to do imperfectly, in the middle of the mess.
The difference between can’t and won’t and don’t know where to start
Self-resistance doesn’t always come from the same place, and it’s worth knowing which flavour you’re dealing with because the fix is different each time.
Confusion: the new approach makes sense in theory, but you’re not sure exactly what to do or where to begin. This isn’t resistance — it’s a gap in information.
Overwhelm: the whole thing feels like such a big undertaking that you don’t do any of it. This is a scoping problem, not a motivation problem. You’re trying to change too many things at once.
Habit: the old way is just what your hands do. Your intention is right, but the autopilot keeps taking over. This one improves with repetition and with making the new way genuinely easier than the old way.
Most people assume they’re lazy or undisciplined but they’re usually just trying to solve the wrong problem.
How to actually get yourself to do the thing
A few things that make a real difference:
Start stupidly small. Changing everything at once is a reliable way to change nothing. Pick one thing, do it consistently, and add the next thing once that one’s stopped needing so much thought.
Make the new way easier than the old way. If the old way is still faster, it will always win. Remove the friction from the new approach until it takes less effort, not more.
Give yourself a specific time, not a vague intention. “I’ll sort it this week” loses every time to “I’ll set this up on Wednesday after my 11am.” Vague plans live in hope but specific ones live in your diary. Personally, I live and breathe in my Asana board for tasks of ANY size.
Notice when you revert, without turning it into a verdict on yourself. You went back to the old way. That’s useful information, not evidence that you can’t change. What made the old way feel easier in that moment? That’s what needs addressing.
A fresh pair of eyes helps more than you’d think
When you’re the business, it’s tough to see where the sticking points are. You’re too close to it and you can’t always tell if you’re resisting because something isn’t right for the way you work, or just because it’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
That’s where having someone alongside you makes a disproportionate difference. Not to tell you what to do, but to help you work out which of those it is, and what to do next. If you’d like that kind of thinking partnership, a discovery call is a good place to start.
