Everyone fears change. It’s inbuilt in our genetic makeup. We fear the unknown as that is how we survived. 

Change will always feel scary, it’s threatening as it adds an element of uncertainty to your situation. Our brains are wired to resist this uncertainty and prefer a predictable outcome to an uncertain one – even if that predictable outcome is negative – it’s still preferable to uncertainty. 

So you naturally want to resist starting jobs with uncertain outcomes. This is when deferring comes into play. 

You defer the big important jobs – the ones that are needed to grow your business – choosing instead to let yourself get swept up in the easy, familiar tasks. 

So how do you get over this innate fear of change – that resistance to uncertainty? 

My advice is to ask yourself why this particular job prompts feelings of uncertainty. 

Then ask yourself what problems this job will solve and weigh up the benefit (the problems it solves) against the cost (a little bit of uncertainty). 

Remember, your brain prefers a predictably bad, less risky outcome over something uncertain so you need to emphasize the negative of staying in familiarity and force yourself to look at the positives the big but uncertain job can have. 

So you’ve begun to understand the psychology behind your resistance. Now you have to actually do the job, which is another mountain to climb in itself. 

Start by breaking the job down into structured smaller chunks and reward yourself after you’ve completed each section. 

I’ve made a worksheet called a ‘Task Reframer ‘ to help you do this. 

If you’d like it comment ‘CHANGE’ and we’ll send it across.