Inertia, procrastination, and decisional paralysis

Yesterday we were meeting with a colleague who is also a life insurance consultant and our conversation turned to the difficulty his clients seem to have in making changes to their life insurance portfolios. Even when a person comes to grips intellectually with the many good reasons to make changes they often find it hard to take action.

In his transforming work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) Sir Isaac Newton postulated three laws that form the basis of mechanics. The first of his three laws stated that “an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by another force.” Inertia is the word we use to describe this property. Inertia can also be used to describe a person’s propensity to let a situation or condition remain as is rather than taking action to effect changes.

Sometimes actions that might bring about change are avoided due to a lack of confidence. You fear that the action contemplated may not be the best action to take. Maybe you will be worse off after taking action due to unforeseen or unexpected consequences. Perhaps the problem will solve itself. Is it better to put up with “the devil you know” rather than the “devil you don’t know?” Are you jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

There are so many colloquialisms around this issue that it must be a pervasive and long standing aspect of the human condition. Our brains seem hardwired to immediately come up with all of the ways something can go wrong. This can be a source for inertia, procrastination, or even complete decisional paralysis or you can use this hardwired danger avoidance mechanism as the raw material for solutions. If you were to catalog all of the “dangers”, real or perceived, that stand in the way of achieving a goal you could then devise a strategy around each one so that in the end you have a confident course of action that will achieve the desired change.

The Pain of Change

People sometimes say that change is painful. One of sources of pain comes from resistance to change. Even when we know that a particular change is something we want or need, we may resist it because change means leaving what we know and moving into unknown territory. Some pain may come from waiting longer than necessary to accept change. We may only move forward when the pain becomes unbearable. So, rather than being a characteristic of change, pain may be the tool we use to allow ourselves to change. This topic is beautifully addressed in Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Eat, Pray, Love.

Four Aspects of Change

While checking the Recent Headlines section of the blog this morning we noted that each of the stories (served from Google News based on the key word “changes”) dealt with changes in different ways. The first story “Scientists Detail Climate Changes” shows how we must be aware of changes that have occurred over time. Some changes, like climate changes, occur slowly at least from our human lifespan reference. The second story “Residents Seek Traffic Changes” reflects our reaction to what we perceive as adverse changes. The third story “HUD Institutes Changes to Speed Storm Repairs” represents a third aspect of change, namely when we take action to make changes in response to having detailed a change, determined that it was undesirable, and making an active response to alter the future. The fourth story “Proposals on Changes to Ration Allowance of Armed Forces to the Cabinet of Ministers” details a way that people consider alternatives prior to taking action. A process of change can be developed:
1. Observe and catalogue changes that have occurred.
2. Decide whether the changes are positive or negative.
3. If the changes are negative, consider alternative courses of response.
4. Implement strategies to constructively cultivate change.

Cultivating Change Constructively

We have decided to create this blog to capture current thoughts about change. Change is the constant challenge that we hope to help others steer constructively. We believe that a proactive approach to change can result in greater confidence and clarity.

Fire Drills are strategically driven contingency plans that help individuals, families, businesses and other organizations create models for managing unexpected change. We will introduce sample Fire Drills from time to time to demonstrate how you might use them or create your own.

We will be posting our observations of change in various family and business systems and hope that you will add yours as well.