The power of non-negotiables

Building the foundation of a thriving life.

In my experience helping people create changes in their lives (including my own), I’ve noticed many patterns emerge and interfere with our best intentions.

There are many ways we, well, get in our own way.

There is a multidimensional response to the change process. This response often resists change, even when it’s exactly what someone wants.

This is the genesis of ambivalence, which so often accompanies change.

This experience is common, since change requires us to override years of cognitive-behavioral patterns that we’ve developed to meet certain needs.

Yes, every behavior meets a need. So when we attempt to change our behavior, we notice that it’s a lot easier said than done. Because changing behavior is not just changing behavior, it’s changing the mental and emotional underpinnings of behavior and finding new ways of meeting the needs it’s been serving.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t be change.

There are many facets of this, many of which I have and will continue to explore here. For now, however, I’m going to focus on one mental process that sneakily sabotages our best intentions.

It’s sneaky because it’s a function of the voice in our head that’s so constant we can easily forget it’s there, like white noise.

And that voice likes to negotiate this whole change thing.

And because that voice is part of the patterns that generated the behavior we are attempting to stop, it typically argues against the changes we’re trying to make.

So we negotiate with ourselves.

There are several parts of us and this negotiation is simply the part of us that wants change vs. the part of us that doesn’t.

Held in the court of thought—or the boardroom of the brain—these negotiations derail our efforts and make it harder to stick to our commitments.

Here are a some examples of how this negotiation might play out. Take a look and see if any are familiar:

The Basics of Negotiating (With Yourself)

1. The “I’ll Start Tomorrow” Trap
It’s common to tell yourself, “I’ll start my new workout routine tomorrow,” or “I’ll eat healthier starting next week.” While it’s great to plan, often this negotiation delays action indefinitely. Very clever, as tomorrow is only a today that is not yet here.

2. The “One More Won’t Hurt” Appeal
When trying to stop a behavior, it’s easy to negotiate with yourself about doing it “one more time.” This can quickly lead to breaking your commitment entirely. Every time that “one more time” is complete, we have a moment of believing that it was, indeed, the last time. Why? Because the need has been met, and we can rest in that satisfaction until it needs to be met again… one more time.

3. The “I’m Too Busy” Excuse
During times of transition or when life is chaotic, it’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t have time for the changes you’ve planned on. However, these moments are often when they’re needed most. Sometimes, our shadow creates more busy-ness so we can continue to use this strategy, putting off the changes most important to us for another period of life which, of course, never comes.

4. The “I’ll Make Up for It Later” Promise
This negotiation is another common one, in which we don’t change something now because we will do so even more in the future, making up for whatever we decide to do in this moment. I love the confidence that this one has in the future version of ourselves. That’s probably why this argument wins me over the most. Like, “No worries, next-week/month Zack will make up for it!” But since I’m aware of it, I can choose otherwise. That’s what’s so important about calling these strategies out.

5. The “I Deserve a Break” Justification
When you’ve had a tough day or week, it’s easy to convince yourself that you deserve a break from whatever changes you intended on. This one can easily be followed by any of the others. Plug and play.

In all of these negotiation strategies, we delegate change to the future. They are all about relieving the tension of starting now. The future, however, is only a present moment that’s not yet here.

Notice how these negotiation strategies don’t resist change entirely, only for right now. That’s why they’re easy to side with. That’s why we listen to them. That’s also why they derail our intentions and keep us from the life we want… because the future is a phantom that never really shows itself.

That one day is never today. The future is always just an idea. The future exists nowhere but in our thoughts about it.

So the changes we want to make get put off, time and time again.

What’s even more problematic, in my opinion, is the way this process impacts our self-belief.

By not honoring our intentions, we lose credibility with ourselves. Eventually, we stop believing ourselves at all. Our commitments become meaningless to us.

According to Self-Perception Theory, people become aware of their character and attitudes by observing their own behavior. Well, if that’s true, imagine what we begin to think about ourselves as we abandon our best intentions over and over again.

Imagine how we begin to feel about ourselves if we talk ourselves out of our most sincere commitments.

Imagine what that does does to our self-trust?

Perhaps you don’t have to imagine.

So I bring up negotiating here to illuminate the ways in which we lose credibility and slowly diminish trust in ourselves, and how that keeps us from making the changes we want to make.

Alright. If negotiating keep us from change, what can help?

If negotiating damages our credibility with ourselves, how can we build it back?

Hold my matcha.