A random fact about how humans can survive in the harshest climates of the Tundra to the Sahara deserts made me thinking. Though that’s an extreme example, humans are really quite adaptable.

Unless we stop being so.

Adaptability, resilience, openness to change are all interrelated.

You can’t be adaptable unless you are open and willing to change. Resilience depends on how easily you can bounce back from setbacks and mold yourself to changed realities.

Being adaptable is not a trait which comes easily to few. Once you get used to a particular lifestyle or even story, it can be really hard to change. Even when not changing is in fact being harmful or not working for you.

I used to get flustered by even small changes. If my boxing instructor asked us to combine punches instead of following the set routine, I used to get frustrated. “Why can’t we just continue to do what we have been doing all this time?” 🙂

However, understanding your own friction to change can hopefully open the doors for change as well. Just by realizing the difficulty and real work it takes to adapt to changes sometimes softens the problem.

This podcast Why You Don’t Change (But How You Still Can) beautifully captures the difficulties involved in change and gently gives some suggestions. For me, the biggest takeaway was the realization was how change always entails giving up something, even if it was bad.

Starting an exercise regimen, means you have to give up your old habits of eating junk food or not moving your body enough. By being aware of what the change entails, you can make a more practical decision if you want to pursue with the change. You realize that you are in control of your life, you can at any point decide to swap out these habits with healthier ones.

Change is always hard. But by exercising change and being quite adaptable to changing circumstances, hopefully we get better at it with time.