Of the many things that the brain is hardwired to do, celebrity therapist Marisa Peer, writes that “your brain is hardwired to resist what is unfamiliar, and return to what is familiar.” It’s what makes people return back to their hometown after a divorce, or lottery winners blow through all their money because they are not used to having it, or never taking the leap into a career change because what they are trained to do is so familiar and comfortable.
But, how do you fight this hardwiring? By being smarter and making the unfamiliar familiar! By making what you want, what you are used to! This means researching the future. This means spending some time, a lot of time, thinking about your vision, talking to others that have been there, maybe even visiting, walking, planning. And practicing! Repetition, repetition, repetition! And support!
My mother does not drive outside of 10 miles of her home. Over the course of several weeks, we drove the route back and forth to my house probably 10 times. Now she tells everyone, “oh, it’s so easy to get to my daughter’s house!” Repetition and practice creates familiarity!
My best friend picked up her life, after divorcing a controlling husband, to move 5 states away. Super brave. But, it was months of traveling, investigating, reviewing, walking, planning, driving, and even living there for a while, that made the unfamiliar, familiar! Now, she can’t stop talking about her new life and her mental health because of it. Research and planning creates familiarity!
I have spent the last twenty years overseeing my former job’s investments, and dreaming of what I would do if I ever won the lottery, and researching my own retirement if I didn’t! So, when my husband passed away unexpectedly, I knew what to do with the insurance money. Even in my grief, this prior work reading and dreaming about investing and retirement options, for years, made knowing who to hire and how to invest so familiar that it was almost a reflex. Spending time thinking about the unfamiliar makes it familiar!
Doing nothing means you have indeed made a decision to accept the familiar and give in to your hardwiring. It’s where you make mistakes, like going back to your hometown, glueing together that old broken relationship, not submitting that resume, or not going back to school. But doing the research, reading, talking to others, walking, visiting, exploring – those are the secrets to making the unfamiliar future, familiar!
You can’t go back. No. Really you can’t. You deserve what you want. Go get it girl.