Does this sound like you?

I received a call from a woman who said, “I want you to come to do my Feng Shui but we cannot change anything and we cannot tell my husband. He cannot know you were here.”

What I hear you saying is that you want something to change but you are resisting doing the work that it takes to achieve your goal. That’s akin to saying you want to win the New York Marathon but you would rather just sit & relax in your backyard and not run but you still want to win. That doesn’t correlate, right?

The truth is that we all have quite a resistance to change. Acting in a new way requires more power from the brain. There is a physiological reaction when your brain is presented with a new way of doing something. To protect you, the brain reverts back to what it already knows.

Human beings can adapt to new behavior. In general, it is a difficult and, sometimes, painful process – even for the brain itself.

If you are engaging in Feng Shui, you may be experiencing a significant struggle around your health, wealth or relationships. You are prepared to do whatever it takes to feel better. Or things are good and you are cautious to protect what you have from any kind of drastic or dramatic change – like a major health issue, divorce, or bankruptcy.

To get where you want to be, something has got to give. Because you cannot get there from where you are now, right?

Here are a few tips to help you navigate change:

1. Prepare For Change: Get ready to be ready for change. Anticipate where there may be some resistance and accept that it is time to adjust.

2. Identify The Root Cause Resistance: To be effective at the next steps, you must look deeper into what is ultimately causing the resistance. This is part of your free will. So, the success of your endeavor is largely dependent on your willingness to ‘go there’ and get to the root. You will be amazed at how strong you are and what you can discover.

3. Manage The Change: Develop specific action steps that will take when you start to feel resistance to change. Stop yourself, acknowledge the resistance, then pivot to adjust to feeling good again.

4. Use Your Resources: Evolution and transformation takes time. You may benefit from some outside support while you are making changes. Especially, if you are experiencing a life-cycle event, such as a grieving a loss, getting married, changing career, etc. Having a team to help you manage change can give you valuable tools and potential tactics for addressing resistance and moving you beyond your current position.

Remember the freedom of riding a bike for the first time? Life is very much like that — full of capabilities that are ready to be harnessed and directed if only we know how — that we have not had control of through most of our lives. Once we learn how to coordinate and get the bike moving, we get to choose where we go. This is true for our lives, too.

Ideally, we are on a path toward our healthiest goals of happiness, love, success, and growth. When we are on this path, we can feel joy and be inspired.