We become attached to things more quickly than we like to think. We use something and it works well, we put systems in our mind for how to use those things, and then that thing changes and we get frustrated because the way that we have always done something must change.
I realized this first in others. When I try and come in and help some of my customers by suggesting a change in their process of doing something to replace it with something easier, there are a small few who will take that advice and run with it. Most don’t want to mess with anything that will change what they’re currently doing. Even if their current process is hard and time-consuming. They assume that replacing it will be just as much work as doing what they’re doing.
We experience this in many things we do. A social media changes the interface that they have and we are annoyed because the button we always clicked right here is in a different place or gone completely. Our iPhone that used to have a nice big button to go home now must be slid up from the bottom to go “home”. Recently, my company switched from Zoom, something I have used for over 2 and a half years, to Google Meet.
All of these things can be extremely annoying for us because we are so used to doing things the way we’ve always done them. When we’re forced to switch over to something, especially when it wasn’t our idea, we don’t like having to do that. Even if it means time-saving and easier, the reprogramming of our minds is what we don’t like.
As I was thinking about this, I’ve realized that this infiltrates every part of our lives. Even the way we are raised, the standards our parents have, are often things that stick with us even into adulthood. Why many people may have the same religion as their parents, or at least claim it, because they don’t want to reprogram their mind.
Then those who do choose to reprogram can have an adverse reaction in which they never want to get in the same pattern again and constantly change for the sake of changing. Not wanting to be put into a category. Yet even they have programmed their mind to do something – they’ve programmed it to constantly changed. It would be hard to get them to stay complacent for any period of time, because that would require a change in behavior.
I’m trying to remember this as my company switched from Zoom to Google Meet and I’m praying tooth and nail that we don’t go through with it. I’m so familiar with Zoom and don’t like Google Meet, yet for many things it does seem to work better.
Change can be good, even when it’s painful. We just have to open ourselves up sometimes.