This week I heard a quote from Rob Dial, a motivational speaker on social media, “Your nervous system doesn’t move towards what is exciting. It moves towards what is familiar.” This quote really resonated with me. For much of my life I have struggled with anxiety and clinging to the familiar to ease my anxiety. It made me think about how many people think they are chasing goals, but the reality is they are chasing comfort or familiarity.

Our nervous systems are created to inherently prefer the familiar because predictability equals safety. The brain is designed to save energy and it is always looking to automate recurring experiences to conserve cognitive load. It is constantly searching for known patterns, even if they are uncomfortable or unhealthy, because the unknown is processed as an unpredictable threat. Familiar stimuli require less mental processing, which is easier for the brain, therefore it registers as positive and safe. The amygdala, part of the brain that detects threats, is wired to anticipate the future based on the past. If you survived a familiar environment or dynamic, your nervous system will naturally steer you back towards these same familiar patterns in order to guarantee survival, regardless of whether the experience was objectively healthy or not. Repeated behaviors and emotional states become encoded in the part of your brain called the basal ganglia, which controls voluntary motor control, procedural learning, and reward-based decision making. This wiring can become very ingrained and incredibly difficult to break and retrain.

Since the nervous system equates unfamiliarity with danger, attempting sudden or big changes can trigger the fight- flight response. You can break the loop by gradual exposure. When you introduce micro steps, it makes change more manageable and your brain is more easily able to process the new in your routine as safe. This can be something as simple as visualizing that scary thing you want to do, then take one small action towards this new thing, then keep taking small steps towards your ultimate goal. You can also practice somatic regulation. This is just consciously calming your body when you begin something unfamiliar. You can do things like box breathing or paying attention to your 5 senses to ground you. This is a signal to your nervous system that everything is okay and you are not in danger. You can also consciously remind your brain that the discomfort you feel is normal for someone trying something new, and is not actually dangerous. We must continue to expose ourselves to the unfamiliar over and over again to get used to that feeling of being in a situation that feels scary because it is unfamiliar. Over time this gets easier and you are able to do more and more exciting things! Ultimately, familiarity is built over time, it is not innate. 

Because our nervous system tricks us into wanting to stay comfortable, we must recognize that if we want change in life, it’s not always necessarily about more motivation or more discipline. What we really need to focus on is creating that familiarity in our lives. Once we have that mastered, we are actually able to move towards the exciting!