https://amzn.to/4bEKJNP

How is it that we are able to so radically and rapidly change our daily behavior in order to follow the social distancing and stay-at-home policies during the pandemic, and yet--pandemic or not--we typically find it difficult, if not impossible, to reach smaller personal goals like dieting, getting organized or changing destructive habits?

The pandemic is life-threatening, so it ignites our survival instincts, activating that part of our brains charged with speedily and efficiently getting us to safety.

But cholesterol, alcohol, and physical passivity are all life-threatening, and many of us humans have done a lousy job changing in regard to these issues, even when we have reliable information that they are killing us. Why do we struggle to change what would so obviously help ourselves individually?

Ross Ellenhorn’s book, How we Change (and the Ten Reasons Why We Don’t) gives a fascinating answer. A clinician and thought leader in the mental health and addiction fields, he suggests that we’re often looking in the wrong direction when we try to decipher the factors that support human change.

He suggests that it’s much more fruitful to look at why we don’t change, than figure out why we do. By looking at the reasons we don’t change, we give ourselves the best chance of actually changing in meaningful ways.

“The Coronavirus pandemic has revealed a very big secret we’ve been keeping from ourselves and each other: We can be remarkably agile in the face of change.”