Recently, I told my husband that I’d been inconsistent in taking a daily supplement that my doctor recommended. Ah, he said, you must not want to take them. Pardon? I pushed back, saying that it wasn’t that simple. There was nothing inside me that recoiled from swallowing a pill each day, it’s just that I kept forgetting.
That got me thinking about the vast space between wanting to do something and not doing it. It isn’t as straightforward as you’d think, and figuring it out matters for what you might do next.
The Murky Middle
Most of us can rattle off a hundred things we’d like to do: leave the job, speak up for ourselves, return that phone call. And then we find ourselves just not doing it. The not-doing lives in this murky middle, so it’s helpful to look at what’s actually happening.
The first order of business is to find out what category it’s in.
Some changes are logistical issues. I kept my supplement bottle on a counter that I did not look at when I went about my morning coffee routine. So my gap between intention and action was environmental, not psychological. One tiny change, moving the supplement bottle next to the coffee pot, was enough to increase my consistency tenfold. It was a systems issue. James Clear, who wrote Atomic Habits, calls my solution habit stacking: attaching a new behavior to something you’re already doing.
This category of not-doing responds to a change in systems. However, some changes you want to make won’t fit neatly into this framework. Let’s say you want to get out of your corporate job because you’re burned out. And I want to book a research trip to Scotland. Neither of us are doing it.
What Is Immunity to Change?
I’m not trying to build a habit. Arranging this trip takes some big decisions and a lot of coordination. So I can’t do what James Clear suggests: make doing the thing obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. I have to look closely at what my resistance is telling me.
In 2009, Bob Kegan and Lisa Lahey published the book Immunity to Change, where they investigated how resistance to change is rooted in self-protection. You find yourself doing exactly the opposite of what you say you want, because you’re protecting yourself from something terrible. That terrible thing is based on a fear that you believe is true. Any rational person would avoid the change in that situation.
You can try their framework right now, if you want. It’s called an Immunity Map, and it lets you see how and why you have developed an immunity to the change you want to make.
Start by naming a commitment to something you really want. How do you know if you really want it? Three ingredients must be present:
It’s vitally important. You feel, in your gut, that this is a needed change, not just a nice-to-have change. If you don’t change something or someone you love will be at risk.
It’s important to someone near you – other people would also value the change if you made it.
Seeing the commitment through requires your action, not anyone else’s.
Do you have the thing you’re committed to? Great. As an example, let’s say your commitment is to leave the corporate job that’s burning you out.
Your Competing Commitments
Now that you’ve stated your commitment, it’s time to admit what you’re doing or not doing that is in direct conflict with what you say you want. Maybe you’re staying in the job, signing up for classes and dropping out. You’re going to networking events and never following up with anyone. List everything you can think of. The more honest you are with yourself here, the better.
Me? Scrolling, wringing every piece of information I can find from online databases, agreeing to events that will keep me at home.
All those things you just admitted that you’re doing or not doing point to a set of competing commitments. They might be conscious or subconscious, but are probably based on some real fears. Can you name the fears first? This might take some self-spelunking. When you imagine leaving the job, what wigs you out the most? It might be a fear of failure, or becoming destitute. That can reveal what you’re actually committed to: job stability, doing what’s easy, and maintaining your reputation.
Now all of our behaviors make sense. You’re not leaving the job because you’re committed to the idea of job security. You’re dropping out of classes because you’re committed to only doing what feels easy. You’re not following up because you’re committed to hiding from anyone who might reject you.
Meanwhile I’m sitting at home and numbing out, which helps me deliver on my commitment to financial safety and staying available to friends here.
Naming your competing commitments can help you stop being bewildered by your actual behaviors and understand that they are brilliant adaptations to the real commitments running the show.
There’s one more step.
Testing your big assumptions
Your competing commitments are based on some big scary assumptions that feel true. You won’t be able to make a living outside this job. You’re unqualified to do anything other than what you’re currently doing. One of my assumptions? This research trip is silly and not worth spending money on.
When I speak my assumptions out loud to my friends, they are aghast. This is so important to you! It’s the main thing that’s been lighting you up!
But if we blindly believe our assumptions, we just feed the evidence for doing the opposite of what we say we want. Assumptions protect us from our biggest fears. This is how the immunity to change develops.
And here is where the whole thing starts showing cracks. Your assumptions might not be true. If you are willing to poke at them just a little, you can find out. Let’s say you follow up with one person from a networking event and observe that they don’t laugh at you at all. You finish one online class and realize the effort was worth it.
How to Build an Immunity Map
Testing your assumptions is a long process — the full Immunity to Change methodology is a book and a body of work, not a podcast segment. But making the immunity map is useful even without completing the process.
It can let you go a little easier on yourself. You made assumptions and believed them. They led you to make commitments to yourself which kept you safe. Your behaviors pay off those commitments. And your stated goal, the real change you say you want to make, sits out there gathering dust.
If you’re in that position, try creating an immunity map. List your commitment to change, actual behaviors, what competing commitment is in play, and the assumptions it’s all based on.
And when you’re ready to start testing, friends and family members who love you will happily help you to break down the assumptions you make about yourself.
This week, pick one thing you keep saying you want to do and haven’t done. Is it a systems problem, or an immunity to change problem? If it’s the latter, what do your behaviors show that you’re actually committed to instead?
Start there.
Burn the map. Build what fits.
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