The Complacent Zone – Warrior Mind Podcast #612

How To Breakout Of Your Complacent Zone

Why Change Is Hard and How to Fix It

When we think about getting new results, whether it’s in the area of health, fitness, athletics, sales or relationships, what we’re looking for is….  

Change!

Change from our current state to more powerful and fulfilling one.

So…What is Change?

Change is something that moves us out of our comfort (complacent) zone.

Let me ask you, how many times have you set out to create change only to get “stuck” or to backslide? 

Why this happened is because you slammed up against your line of mental resistance.

What is Mental Resistance?

It is the consciousness or unconscious rejection to change.

The inherent problem with setting out to get new result, i.e. goal setting is how it relates to the way the brain works. Recent neuroscience research shows the brain works in a protective way, that is, it’s resistant to change.

Therefore, any goals that require substantial behavioral change or thinking-pattern change will automatically be resisted. The brain is wired to seek rewards and avoid pain or discomfort, including fear and change is perceived as a discomfort by the brain and mind.

When fear or failure creeps into the mind of the goal setter it commences a de-motivator with a desire to return to known, comfortable behavior and thought patterns.

Why Change is So Hard

Change is constant and will always be present in our lives, either we cause it or we’re the effect of it.

In fact, the person you are when you start reading this article is different from the person you are after reading it—that is how quickly we change.

Medical research has shown that in one year the physical makeup of your body changes 99% and only takes four years to become a completely new you. That means part of us changes every single moment.

The big question is: Why is change so hard for us?

I believe it has to do with our inability to manage all the components of change.

The field of neuroscience reveals some interesting facts about how we deal with change in our bodies and the emotional impact it has on us. Let me share some interesting facts to create awareness as to why change can be so hard.

As you read, I encourage you to read it through the perspective of a behavior you have struggled to change: people pleasing, health and fitness, relationships, getting angry and shouting at people, putting yourself down, etc.

Our behaviors become addictions, and addictions are hard to change.

An addictive behavior starts with a belief that drives the habit. Saying to yourself that people love you when you do what they want supports the belief that you are not worthy. This type of inner voice drives the oft-destructive habit of people pleasing, a specific behavior linked directly to our emotions.

To change these behaviors seems easy on the surface.

You think, “If I allow others to put me down while putting themselves first and keep accepting this, then I am willfully not standing up for myself.”

The easiest way to change this is to say ‘no’ and stand up for yourself, right?

If only it were that easy.

Unfortunately, our bodies are working against change, and here is what is happening:

Our emotions drive our behaviors, and our behaviors create certain chemicals specific to those behaviors. The body gets used to these chemicals and eventually starts becoming dependent on them.

This is when change becomes hard.

When we try to change our behavior, we are fighting to cause an imbalance to a chemical balance in our body. We want a change in behavior that does not produce the chemicals our bodies have become dependent on. Our bodies fight our attempts to change on a chemical level, and change becomes hard.

These emotional addictions seek out the situations that serve the chemical being produced and our brains start craving these chemicals.

Dr. Candace Pert, Ph.D., professor at Georgetown University Medical Center and author of Molecules in Emotion, discovered that our brains have opiate receptors that chemicals connect to and produce an effect on the body. The various emotions that we feel create specific chemicals in the body that connect to our brain via these opiate receptors. These chemical cocktails are unique to each emotion.

Furthermore, Joe Dispenza, author of Evolve Your Brain, identified that for each unique emotional chemical cocktail, there are unique receptors. The more we produce this chemical cocktail, the more the brain produces the receptors. The implications are profound.

The more people pleasing we do, the more we produce the unique emotional chemical cocktail associated with the habit of people pleasing and the hungrier we become for the people-pleasing chemical cocktail.

We become addicted to our habit of people pleasing on a chemical level, which makes changing hard, because change requires that we behave and feel differently.

Behaving and feeling differently is uncomfortable as it is not familiar to us due to years of being a certain way. When we decide to change, we feel a level of discomfort and have saboteurs (negative beliefs) as well as chemical imbalances working against us.

But we can change if we are conscious and intentional about the change.

Now that we know what is happening inside of us, we do not have to feed it. We will get over the discomfort. The more we consciously choose to be different, the fewer chemical cocktails and receptors we produce.

The cravings for your addiction lessen, and you change.

So, be aware that change is challenging and be hopeful that it is possible with conscious choice.

You have the ability to change, you just have to be serious about it and have a big enough why to stay motivated.

Our Complacent Zone

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The difference between comfortable and complacent. is that comfortable is (lb) comforting, providing comfort; consolatory while complacent is uncritically satisfied with oneself or one’s achievements; smug.

For all of us we have two borders or boundaries that “protect” us from change.

At the bottom is the mental support line.  This is a point that you will go no “lower” then, i.e. you won’t weigh more than this, you won’t make any less than this or you won’t be alone longer than this.

At the upper end is the mental resistance line.  This is the line that “protects” you from venturing too far out of your box….your complacent zone.

The inherent problem with goal setting is related to how the brain works. Recent neuroscience research shows the brain works in a protective way, resistant to change.

Therefore, any goals that require substantial behavioral change or thinking-pattern change will automatically be resisted. The brain is wired to seek rewards and avoid pain or discomfort, including fear.

When fear of failure creeps into the mind of the goal setter it commences a de-motivator with a desire to return to known, comfortable behavior and thought patterns.

We all know were rock bottom is, but most of us have no idea where our invisible ceiling is.

You see, the problem with the mental resistance line is we don’t know exactly where it is.  There are signs when you get close like:

• Procrastination
• Frustration
• Fear
• Excuses
• Justification
• Defending
• Backing off
• Looking for something else (to do)
• Boredom
• To name a few….

The issue is that these things happen so unconsciously we’re not even aware of them.

The boundaries look like this:

Where Does Mental Resistance and Support Come From?

There are four major components that make up both the level of mental support and mental resistance, they are:

• Beliefs

• Values

• Emotions

• Past experiences

It representation might look like this:

So, as we start to make progress towards our goals we get closer to our mental resistance line and “things” start to happen (go back to the list above for signs that you’re getting close to your mental resistance).

As we bounce back and forth between our mental support and mental resistance we create our Complacent Zone. 

We fool ourselves into thinking that we have or in the process of change (compared to where we were), but in reality we’re recreating what we’ve already done.  No real change has occurred because we are still inside our Complacent Zone.

We’ve looked at what makes up the boundaries of our Complacent Zone, now let’s look at what it’s made of.

What Makes Up Our Complacent Zone?

• Environment
  • People
  • Places
  • Things 

• Capabilities
  • Skills
  • Talents

• Behavior
  • Habits
  • Routines

• Your Story
  • What you tell yourself and others why you can can’t reach your goals

This now would look like this:

Breaking Out

This brings us the question of exactly HOW do we break out of our Complacent Zone?

The first steps is to investigate the boundaries of mental strength and support.  That is, we need to look deeply into our beliefs, emotions, past experiences and values associated with our Complacent Zone.

This can be done individually, but because many of the qualities of the boundaries are in our unconscious minds and we really don’t know what to look for and this can take a while.  In addition, if we’ve held a limiting belief for some time we’ll actually believe it and not even question it.

This is where a coach comes in handy.  A trained, certified coach has been educated on what to look and hear for.  By having highly interactive conversations with a coach he/she will be able to reflect back and ask questions around your beliefs, emotions, past experience and values to help begin the shift.

To take care of the composition of the Complacent Zone training can be very effective.  This doesn’t have to be formal training, just some interactive and experiential training that will create new resources, i.e. capabilities.

Once these new capabilities are in place you can develop an action plan on how to change your behavior to embrace them.  One way of doing this is to modify your environment (people, places and things) so that it support your new capabilities and behaviors.

Peak Performance and the Complacent Zone

What is Peak Performance? Peak performance is the maximum enhancement of all mental, emotional, physical and situational elements that let us reach optimal level. All the ingredients of a peak performance must be recognized, assessed, developed and improved as much as possible.

Anyone who wants to perform at an optimal level, whether in their studies, sports, jobs, can benefit from coaching and training to break out of their Complacent Zone and reach peak performance.

Unfortunately, only a small percent of individuals actually achieve peak performance.

The Importance of Motivation

When we’re motivated things happen, when we’re not…not so much.  When there’s not enough energy and motivation, nothing happens, there is no or very little action take. 

Also, too much energy and motivation, nothing happens or at least very poor results as illustrated in the diagram below:

What is Mental Strength?

The ability to get things done despite mental resistance. Everything you desire lies on the other side of mental resistance.  Here’s what it looks like:

Summary

So, when we look at creating lasting change, that is, something different than we’ve created before, we must take into account both the internal world (beliefs, memories, values, emotions) along with the external world (capabilities, behavior and environment).

Addressing one without the other will produces temporary results.

You see, that key here is to break through the level of mental resistance and stay there long enough for it to become the new level of mental support.  This will produce a new complacent zone with a new level of mental resistance.

Because this new level, i.e. complacent zone, and is so fresh the new level of mental resistance hasn’t been discovered yet. That you’re job now, to discover the new level of mental resistance and break thought it.

This is essentially consistent growth and evolution. 

Now that we’ve looked at WHAT to do to bust out of the complacent zone let’s take an overview on HOW do it.

The 4 Mental Strength Skills to Breaking through Mental Resistance

Taking several pages from SEAL and Olympic athletic training there are essential 4 core process to help bust a move and breakaway from your complacent zone.

These are:

1. Goal Setting

Setting goals is essential in the achievement of any success and reaching peak performance.  Unfortunately most people don’t set goals or set them and never review them.

Goals should the “SMARTER” format (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time bound, evaluate and revise).

In addition goals should be separated between process and outcome.

• Self-Talk

Self-talk is one of the most underestimate tools for change and success.  Mostly because we give such little attention to it.  Self-talk is the key to our motivation.  If we tell ourselves that we don’t think we’ll be able to do something, unconsciously we’ll not give it our all.  And in return we won’t do what we set out to do. This is in effect the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our self-talk must be compassionate, positive and supportive.  Otherwise we won’t create the motivation and determination to accomplish the change we desire. 

• Energy Management

You can think of energy management as motivation.  Being able to control your energy is critical.  If you’re feeling “down” you need to know how to get up.  If you’re too excited you need to be able to calm down and channel the energy.

If we let our emotions take over our energy and motivation we’re doomed before we even start.  Energy management goes hand in glove with emotional intelligence.  

• Mental Rehearsal  

This has also been called visualization and mental imagery.  The unfortunate use of these terms implies that only images are required.

When you perform mental rehearsal you want use ALL your sense to practice a specific action beforehand.  You want to include vison, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. 

You want to create an internal representation so vivid and so real that your unconscious mind thinks it is real.  Then when it comes time to perform the action the neuro-connections will already be there and the task will be more effective and efficient.

By following the guidelines in this report and create a specific action-based plan you’ll be able to break out your complacent zone, achieve peak performance and live a very fulfilling life.