It doesn’t matter if it’s physical pain, or simply the pain of doing something uncomfortable or inefficient, I’ve noticed that people prefer old pain to new pain.
Knee hurts, but so do the physiotherapy exercises? Well then the knee pain isn’t so bad.
Doing something that takes a long time to do, but learning the better way to do it is hard work? The long way is ok.
Being told that the system you are currently doing needs to change? Complain about all the ways the new system will be a potential problem, rather than focussing on how it could be better.
People prefer to stay in the pain they know than to be introduced to new pain… even if that pain is lesser than the current pain. The pain of change hurts more than the pain you are in. Except it really doesn’t. That’s the paradox of pain… new pain is always perceived as more painful than the current pain you are in. And so change is resisted, and the old pain persists.
Related: Leading Change, and the follow up Embracing Change on my Pair-a-Dimes blog.
