The Mindset Mentor - 3 Psychological Reasons Why Change is So Hard

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. Today, I'm going to be giving you three psychological reasons why change is so hard for humans. And as I go through this, this is going to make a whole lot of sense to you when you look at how crazy the world is right now. When you look at people who are on the left side versus the right side politically, then I'll talk about politics today. You'll see why people who are on one side versus the other with the vaccine and with COVID and all those things. And you'll start to notice, I'm going to look kind of through a political

standpoint, just through that lens, because it'll make a lot of sense to you, but you'll start to see why the world is so crazy right now. Before we dive into it, I'm going to tell you this, I have no political affiliation that I go with. I'm not in the right or the left. I'm very much in the center, and I just let politics do whatever politics are going to do. And this is really going to make sense when I look through this lens, when I give you the three psychological reasons why change is so hard. So with the psychology of politics, I'm going to give you examples based off of politics right now. This could be used for religion. This could be used for politics. This could be used for beliefs. And all of these can even be used for your favorite sports team to understand yourself.

But if you understand the three things I'm going to talk about in today's episode, you're going to really understand people at a very deep level. And you're going to start to notice things about yourself and people that you're close to, people that you work with, people that you love and go, oh my gosh, that is that. I can actually see that psychological reason of them acting that way and why they're acting that way. But more than anything else, what we're really going to talk about is how our brains work to be able to fit in to a certain group. So I'm going to give you three different psychological reasons, okay? First one is this, is something called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is this, humans don't like inconsistency because of the fact that our ancestors hundreds of thousands

of years ago would possibly be attacked by something that was rustling in a bush, we don't like inconsistency. We like consistency. We like to know we're safe. We like to know that what we believe in is going to actually be true. And anything that is inconsistent feels like a threat to us. And so when we come across inconsistency in anything, what we want to do is we want to restore consistency as soon as possible. And so what we do is we'll do one of two things. Number one, we will rationalize behaviors or thoughts, or we will trivialize behaviors or thoughts. So let's talk about real quick why we need to resolve. Like I said, we don't want inconsistency.

It makes us physically uncomfortable when you find something that is inconsistent with what you truly believe in. It causes a mental and a physical discomfort and we have to restore that consistency to feel mentally and physically okay. So we wanna know that, you know, who we are. We wanna know who we are and we wanna know who we are. We want to know who we are, and we want to know where we stand.

And someone that is on one side that says something to somebody that's on the other side that threatens their beliefs, they must bring that down because it's causing cognitive dissonance. So if I believe in XYZ and someone else B, C, and that person comes in and actually tells me why what they believe in is true, it's going to cause cognitive dissonance. Cognitive, things that are going on in my brain, dissonance, which means like things are all over the place and I'm not able to rationalize where they should be. Dissonance just basically means like stuff is not perfect. Stuff is inconsistent here. And so what we do is we tend to bring it

down. We tend to bring it down and we tend to trivialize it. And people have this idea of the law of consistency. I got this from a book that I read a long time ago called Influence by Robert Cialdini. The law of consistency is we have an image of ourself. The way that we think of ourself, the type of person that we are, the belief systems that we have, what we think is right, what we think is wrong. We have a self image to uphold. And if somebody comes in and starts to push our buttons and prove to us maybe some actual truths which are false in ourselves, in our belief system, it can really start to cause a lot of cognitive dissonance. If you're on the left side and somebody from the right side comes

in and starts to prove to you why this thing is wrong, or if you're on the right side and someone from the left side starts to come in and prove to you why this thing is wrong, it's going to cause cognitive dissonance. And this is why you see so many people that literally start to act like children. Somebody will come in and they'll start to threaten their beliefs. And because of the fact that they're threatening their beliefs and they really don't know how to react to it, they get angry. And they start to literally, even if somebody were to come in and tell them absolute truths as to why their side is wrong, they will get angry with that person trying to tell them absolute truth as to why their side is wrong, they will get angry with that person trying to tell them why they are right. So they don't even care if they are right or if what they

believe in is absolute truth. What they care about is actually defending this thing that they believe in. Does that make sense to you? If you think about that, how often do we see that happening right now where you can see somebody who believes something and somebody could come in and show them factually why what they believe in is absolutely wrong. And what will they do? They'll get angry. And they could be proven that that is actually false. What they believe in is false, but they will get angry and start to figure out some sort of way to have a moral high ground on the other person. And so here's what we should do. We don't have to prove somebody else is wrong in order for us to feel better. We just have to let people have their beliefs. I'm going to give you guys a secret of

life, okay? This will help you out a lot, hopefully, with this, you know, everything that's happening out in the world. Somebody does not have to have the same beliefs in you. everything that's happened now in the world. Somebody does not have to have the same beliefs in you. They don't. And they won't. And a lot of people will have completely different beliefs than you. Why does it matter if somebody believes something different than you? Why does it matter? If you believe what you believe in, and you believe that, let's say voting is the example, that the person that you're voting for is right for you, then that person is okay believing that that person that they're voting for is right for them. You cannot change somebody's mind. And most of the time, if you go in and try to change somebody's mind and actually go in there, you'll actually make their belief stronger. And so trying to

change someone's mind is one of the worst things that you can actually do. So the first thing that you have to realize is cognitive dissonance. When somebody gets something like proof given to them as to why their belief is wrong and how they will react, usually it comes back with anger because they don't know how to react, but they have this thing, this belief or this belief system or this person that they have to stand in their belief and prove to everybody else that they are correct when everybody else is wrong. Because cognitive dissonance causes inconsistency and humans do not like inconsistency. So that's the first thing you have to understand that will make what's going on in the world right now so much easier to understand. The second thing is something called partisanship. As humans, we want to feel like we're part of a group. We want to feel like we're part of a tribe.

It's built into us. It's literally built into us because you've heard me say it millions of times if you've been listening to this podcast. People want to fit in. And the reason why people want to fit in is because it's built into our hardware. Our ancestors would not survive if they were kicked out of the tribe. And so we want to fit in. Now, it doesn't matter about fitting in this year than now, but 200, 300,000 years ago, it mattered. But it's built into us still. It's still hardwired. Humans want to create an identity. And so a lot of times people will fall into a political identity. And in turn, they will defend that group, that political identity, like a neighboring tribe is coming in to attack your tribe. And this is where it becomes really dangerous because you need to have self-awareness.

If you want someone to believe something, tell them a story over and over and over again. Because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth in the human brain. Familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth in the human brain. If you hear something over and over and over and over and over again, even if it's false, you will start to believe that it's true. And so with partisanship, one of the things that happens with a lot of the stuff that's happening in the world right now, on all sides, I'm not telling you any specific sides, on all sides is to say something over and over and over and over and over again, and people will start to believe in it. And what it really is, is it's modern day tribalism. Tribalism is hardwired into our brains. It is political tribalism. It is healthcare system

tribalism. It is modern day tribalism at its absolute best. People want to fit in with other people. They want to feel like they have their group. And if that gets threatened, that's when things start to get really hairy. What does it take to achieve your fitness goals? Competitive drive fuels the fire, but going beyond limits requires a roadmap and a trusted co-pilot. That's where Future comes in. Future is a new way of getting fully customized personal training that revolves around you. No matter what gets you moving, you'll find the guidance, motivation,

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I promise you I've been, I've got many shirts and pictures of me wearing shirts and hats of Tampa Bay when they were absolutely terrible. And I'll be watching a football game and I'll notice a really bad foul from my team. It'll be a pass interception, or pass interception, pass interference. And I'm like, oh yeah, no, that wasn't a pass interference. You know, that wasn't a pass interference.

It's, and I start to justify why my team's pass interference wasn't a pass interference. You know, that wasn't a pass interference. And I start to justify why my team's pass interference wasn't a pass interference. And then when I see my team on offense and there's a pass interference, I'm like, that's good. From the other team, I'm like, that's clearly a pass interference. And I will actually look at what my team did wrong

and try to justify why that wasn't bad. But then I'll look at why the other team did wrong and I'll try to justify on why that call should have been made. And I'll look at it and I'll literally notice, oh my God, this is modern day tribalism of me watching a football game. And it's hard to admit that your team is wrong. It's hard to admit. So we must justify the feeling of to literally, hey, this is what happened. I must resolve this. Humans don't want to feel like they're wrong. And so in all of these cases, people are more likely to agree with their group. This is what's crazy. Ready? People are more likely to, in partisanship,

are more likely to agree with their group than actually see the world accurately. How wild is that? People are more likely to agree with their group than actually see the world accurately. How wild is that? People are more likely to agree with their group than actually see the world accurately. So you've got to have self-awareness to take a step back and go, hold on. What is the truth actually here? Are my beliefs coming in here? Is my partisanship coming in here? Am I too worried about fitting in with my team to actually see fact? Or is there something different that I should be paying attention to? Because people want to stay in their political party. They want to stay in their sports team party. And this leads to the rejection

of evidence that is inconsistent with their views or their beliefs. Make sense? We have a lot of this going on right now. You can see it all over in the world. So that's partisanship, which is a second thing. And the third thing is something called the confirmation bias. We will only see evidence that supports our side of the table. We will only see the evidence that support our beliefs. Whenever we hear a story, we look through the lens of our own beliefs. If you watch a political debate, for instance, and if you're on the left side and your friend is on the right side, you can see the exact same political belief, but get two completely different things from it, right? You can literally see the exact same debate, but see two completely, you're seeing the same thing, but you're seeing things differently.

And so this is a big problem with confirmation bias is not only that do we see it on the way that we want to see it based off of what we believe in, but there's also these echo chambers that are created. So let's say that somebody is on one side. Usually if they're on one side, they're going to follow other people on Facebook and Instagram that are also on that side. They're going to join Facebook groups that are also on that side. They're going to join Facebook groups that are also on that side. They're going to join and watch news stations that are also on that side. And if you're on Facebook groups and going on websites and all this stuff that are specifically on one side, whatever that side might be, you have to realize that Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, all of those things are going to give you more of what you're interested in. And so algorithms, that's what an algorithm does. If I go in and I

search on Facebook, something around being a Democrat, or if I go into search, then I'm going to get more stuff that's going to be about be around Democrats. If I go in and search for something that's on something about being Republican, I'm going to get hit with all of these things around being a Republican. If I go in and I Google something around the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I'm going to start to get hit with things around the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That is the way that the algorithms work to keep you addicted. Now, where this is a problem is it creates an echo chamber. When you're on Instagram and Facebook and you're searching for a specific political party or for a specific belief, you're going to get hit with more information around that, which is going to deepen your partisanship, which is going to deepen your

viewpoints on that thing. And once again, whether it's true or not doesn't even matter. Because if you see something over and over and over and over and over again, you start to believe that it's true. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. The human brain, if you see something over and over and over again, you're starting to think in your head, I'm getting enough proof that what I believe in is real, even if it is absolutely false. And so algorithms show you more of what you're likely to enjoy. And so what people don't realize is the way algorithms work, and they're literally getting themselves into a deep hole of what they believe in, and then deepen and deepen and deepen that belief. And that's why if you guys have noticed in the past few years, people have gotten way more extreme

on all sides of everything. People have gotten so extreme. Why? Because they're literally in echo chambers of their beliefs. They can't even see or hear anything outside of their belief because the algorithms are hitting them with what they are interested in. And I'll give you an example of kind of the way that it is, right? There's a story of a priest and an atheist and they're having a conversation. And the priest says, well, why don't you believe in God? What's the reason why you don't believe in God? And the atheist says, the reason why I don't believe in God is because I was out at sea and I fell off my boat. And I fell off my boat and I couldn't get back to my boat and I was swimming and I was sitting and I was thinking I was going to drown. And I was saying, God, please just send, please

just help me. Please help me, God. I just don't want to drown. Please help me. And the priest goes, well, so I don't understand why you don't believe in God because you're here. So clearly he helped you, right? And the atheist goes, no, God didn't help me. A boat full of people came by, picked me up, and they saved me. And so you have to realize in this situation, the priest believes that the people who came to rescue that person, the atheist, the priest believes that God sent them to help that atheist. The atheist believes that God did not help him and the people came by. And so what's happening is it's the exact same story, but because of people looking through their own lens, they're seeing things differently. And you have to realize that with the idea of having confirmation bias, we're constantly looking

for evidence to see our side of the table. We're constantly looking to see why what we believe in is actually true. And the reason why I share these three things with you is because change is so hard if you don't understand the human brain. It's so hard to change your own beliefs. It's so hard to change yourself. It's so hard to change your habits if you don't understand how your brain works. If you don't understand confirmation bias and partisanship, and you don't understand cognitive dissonance, it's really hard to go and actually change yourself because you'll go deeper and deeper and deeper into your beliefs, deeper and deeper and deeper into your habits. And so the important thing of all of this is to number one, be aware that the majority of people in this world right now are stuck in all three of these, and they don't know that they're stuck in all three of these things. They don't. They don't

know that their echo chambers that they're in not only they get to hit it with algorithms and facebook and instagram and youtube and google and all that stuff that is going to hit them based off what they believe in but then they don't realize that they're only going to be hanging out with people who also have the same beliefs as them very rarely do people hang out with people who have completely separate beliefs in them why because it causes cognitive dissonance. Because it makes them start to question their foundation and their beliefs. And people don't like to question their beliefs. They want to know who they are and they want to be set in those beliefs. And so you have

to realize if you want to start to change yourself, first off, number one, have more compassion for people that are out there. People are stuck in their ways and they don't realize that they're stuck in their ways. And these are the reasons why they're stuck in their ways. In the news and the political systems and all the things that are happening right now, know how human psychology works. And they're exploiting human psychology at the highest level. So you've got to have compassion for people, whether they believe in what you believe in or they don't believe in what you believe in. Just have compassion, period. Because people have their own beliefs. You're not going to change the majority of people's beliefs. Just stay in your own. But really what it comes down to is having your own awareness as to when

you're getting stuck in your beliefs, in your political beliefs, in your beliefs around even your football team. And you have to realize and have awareness. Oh yeah, I notice I'm getting stuck in my beliefs again. And start to really challenge yourself. The best thing I think somebody can do is constantly challenge their beliefs. If you really want to grow, challenge your belief as much as you possibly can because there is an animal part of your brain that exists called the amygdala and it is worried about your survival. That's it. It's worried about your survival. And so we only see things through our lens because we think that that's the way that things are and we don't want

there to be any inconsistency. Or we try to see reasons why our side is right. We look for evidence that supports our beliefs, that what we already have versus looking at evidence from the other side, which could possibly make us find that we're wrong. The best thing that you can do as a person is to not lean anywhere, to stay where you are, to create your own belief system, not belief system that your parents handed down to you or that you're getting hit with over and over and over again. Have compassion for other people, whether they believe in the same thing that you do or not, and constantly start to test your own belief system and see if you can prove yourself wrong. That's one of the things that I love to do is I love to see what I believe in and see, hey, is this true or is this just

something that's complete BS that was passed on to me from my childhood? That's why change is so hard is because your brain will resist change in these three different ways. And if you can understand cognitive dissonance, if you can understand partisanship, and if you can understand confirmation bias, you will understand people in this world so much more, but it will make change so much easier because you can have the self-awareness of what you are doing that's holding yourself back and what you need to get past in order to propel yourself forward. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a favor, share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at RobDialJr,

R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. I also share tons of stuff on Instagram, videos, quotes, pictures, all kinds of stuff. If you want some extra motivation and inspiration in your newsfeed, go ahead and follow me there, RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.